Y does he have a sentence for the “unthinkable”, for the “unspeakable”, for the “unimaginable”? For the catalog of horrors committed by Sandrine P. on her daughter Amandine, and which chills and horrifies the audience which flocks every day, ever more numerous, in the outdated courtroom of the Hérault Assize Court ? Sandrine P. was sentenced on Friday January 24 to life imprisonment with a security period of 20 years. Jean-Michel C., Amandine’s stepfather, 20 years in prison.
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This Friday morning, when delivering his requisitions, Attorney General Jean-Marie Beney declared: “There are words to be asked with regard to the law, to express in legal translation the sanction of the unspeakable. » For the representative of the prosecution, there is indeed a “P system.” A “family dictatorship”, of which Sandrine P. was both the “instigator” and “the number one executor”.
A system “in place for more than twenty years” – the intentional violence judged at trial only dates back to 2014. A system which aimed, with the “acts of torture and barbarity” committed in 2020 against Amandine, at “ destroy the personality of the victim to reduce them to what we want.” A system which “experienced a bug”, risks the magistrate. “The problem is Amandine’s death. »
“A dictator, collaborators and a resistance fighter”
The death, he believes, “was not planned”. But this system, he says, we will “adapt to the unexpected” and construct an alternative version to the death of the child. “We’re going to prepare it just in case. We’re going to feed her a little, which is perhaps an accelerating factor in her death. We’re going to wash her, dress her. It’s easy, she’s not quite dead yet. » And “do his nails”, while the forensic doctor will find deep scratch marks on his body.
A system which organizes a “war council to put in place the strategy to adopt”. A system that has its “resistance fighters”: “The resistance fighter from the start is Amandine, and it ends badly, very badly. » And his collaborators. “And the collaborators, I see one in the box. » Against Amandine’s father-in-law, Jean-Michel C., “a cowardly collaborator of the system, depriving Amandine of care until her death”, he requires 18 years of imprisonment. Against Sandrine P., “internal dictator”, he demands life imprisonment. Accompanied by a security sentence of 20 years.
For Sandrine P.’s defenders, there is no system. But rather “a denial that lasted too long”, believes Jean-Marc Darrigade. “That of a woman who lied to herself all her life. Who pushed deep within herself the injustice she experienced, which she cannot bear, which she relives from time to time, and which she refuses to see, to analyze. »
-“You are not a monstrous mother, you are a mother who committed crimes!” »
The day before, before the Court, Sandrine P. recounted at length, in tears, her unhappy childhood as a poor and beaten child in Portugal. A painful past that she would have hidden throughout the investigation from magistrates and experts out of “shame”. And to which the Attorney General said he “finds it hard to believe”. For the lawyer, his client “built herself on rubble”, on “an unfair image”, and would have reproduced what she experienced with Amandine and her other children.
Is she “a monster”, as she described herself the day before? That would be too simple. “It allows us to take responsibility: if she is a monster, we are relieved. She is other, she is not us. It is the abnormality, the rarity. From time to time there is a being like that that emerges from nothing, it must be eliminated. »
For Jean-Marc Darrigade, “the monster does not exist”. “No, ma’am, you are not a monstrous mother. You are a mother who committed crimes for which you will be sentenced. But we must make sure to bring you back among men! »
According to the lawyer, “her responsibility is total, and you will condemn her”. But there are also, for him, other people responsible: the experts “who were wrong”, the child psychiatrist who followed Amandine and “who saw nothing”, Amandine’s father, “who saw, knew and did”, the justice system, which dismissed several cases, and “which could have saved these children from the ordeal”. He urges the jurors to show “accuracy, justice” for Sandrine P., “beyond what she can inspire you”. To tell him: “You will receive a very heavy sentence, but perhaps you will come back among us. »
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Sandrine P.’s other defender, Louis Dolez, also called on the jurors not to be “contaminated by the dictatorship of emotion”. For Jean-Michel C.’s defenders, on the other hand, there was indeed a “P.” system, of which their client, unanimously portrayed as a “kind” and “affectionate” man, would have been the victim, under “control” . “Is he dangerous?” Does society need to be protected from him? Obviously, no,” argued one of his lawyers, Grégoire Mercier. “Stretch out your hand. »
Before the jury retires, Sandrine P., invited to speak one last time, stands up and says, in her very small voice: “I would like to apologize to my children. » Jean-Michel C. has nothing to add.
