Patrick Gérard was sentenced by the Aude Assize Court to 13 years in prison for the murder of Franck Tamba in Gruissan in July 2018. He presented himself under judicial supervision after having served two and a half years in detention.
On June 28, 2024, Patrick Gérard was sentenced by the Assize Court to 13 years in prison for the murder of Franck Tamba committed in Gruissan on July 5, 2018. The 67-year-old Belgian national, who lived on a boat in Port-Gruissan, is prohibited from carrying a weapon for 15 years and is ineligible for 10 years. The Court, which found him guilty of murder, therefore went beyond the requisition of the attorney general who had ruled for a 10-year prison sentence.
A proposed explanation: paranoia
Previously, during this 4th day of hearing, the attorney general Georges Gutierrez had not failed to emphasize the rarity of a murder without motive, recalling that Patrick Gérard was liable to 30 years of imprisonment. No known motive, no explanation, knowing that these four days of debate systematically came up against the lack of explanation from the accused.
One of the central questions lies around these memory losses. Are they fake or real?“I don’t think they’re fake!” decides the attorney general who, in search of the motive, rules out theft and sexual assault. Was it a racist altercation, as suggested by Thierry, an acquaintance found at the Sextant bar? Relying on the testimony of the companion who had admitted that Gérard did not particularly like foreigners, the attorney general takes up the testimony of the bar waitress who, for her part, did not remember an argument. And then the three accomplices (the accused, the victim and this 3rd thief) left the bar together to have a last drink on the boat. No, the explanation closest to the truth, Georges Gutierrez draws from the video conference intervention given to the Court by the Béziers psychiatrist, Dr Aiguesvives: “The psychiatrist gave us the key! explains the general advocate calmly. It is a behavioral disorder, alcohol being a structure in his personality: he is aware of it, and knew that he could get angry. He played cat and mouse with his impulses, was always tempted to drink knowing that he didn’t know how to stop. Amnesia has no rational explanation, it released paranoia in him. His relationships with others are completely distorted, he has imagined who knows what. That he was in danger for some unknown reason. That’s why he took out his knives!” And the Advocate General drives the point home: “It is a gratuitous murder linked to the imagination of Patrick Gérard who thinks that Franck Tamba represents a danger to be eliminated.”
Another element in support of the attorney general’s indictment in favor of the qualification of murder: “The 9 stab wounds, all aimed at the chest. This is not insignificant! You might think: if he had not fallen into the water, he would have been rescued and would not have died. However, the quay is deserted at 5 a.m. and his chances of survival were zero, unless Patrick Gérard had raised the alarm. He will not be able to say that he did not realize it, because he took off his blood-stained Bermuda shorts.” Turning to the accused he says: “You saw! You could have called for help! You are responsible for these acts. It is indeed murder!” And he requires 10 years in prison and medical monitoring, justifying them by the age, 67 years, the personality of Patrick Gérard with a clean French record, and his remorse.
Willful violence resulting in death?
Master Mathieu Montfort was the spokesperson for “he who has no words to explain”. The Montpellier lawyer, defending, added “he would have liked to be able to tell you everything. He cried about it. He is ashamed. Patrick Gérard never shied away, did not dispute his responsibility in the death. He could have remained silent, lied in police custody, escape, clean the boat, put away the knives But no, he is waiting to be arrested at the bloody scene!”
The lawyer relive the scene in the morning on the boat when Patrick Gérard is woken up by the police : “He gets up after a 2.5g binge, half naked, covered in blood, and the police say to him: Look at all that blood! Spontaneous reaction: he says, putting his words into action: I had an argument, I stabbed someone, it’s not serious.”
The lawyer alludes to the fact that the accused was still unaware that his partner from the drunken evening the day before was dead. He had not yet seen the body floating near the boat. Dismantling the arguments on the intention to cause death, he lists: “In the injuries, neither the intensity, nor the number, nor the location determine the will to kill. Did he want to target the vital area? Insisting on the alcohol level: “at 2.5g, he doesn’t realize. How do you want to recognize his intention to kill?” “Be precise about the facts, be fair about the people”, the lawyer asked the jury, citing one of his colleagues from Toulouse, Maître De Caune, who argued for the reclassification of the murder as voluntary violence resulting in death.
