“Taken individually, the accused’s behavior may seem minimal, but it is their accumulation and repetition that constitutes harassment. Brice Partouche, prosecutor, summarized the file as follows. A seemingly harmless file. In a context of difficult coexistence and violence, relations between the accused, his sister and his mother deteriorated between September 2016 and July 2020, after the cat urinated on his bed in the family apartment in Neufchef. The brother, who has returned to live in his parents’ house, then feels expelled. One of her sisters also lives there and is united with her mother, which the defendant cannot bear.
Day after day, year after year, the forty-year-old, who left Neufchef for Luxembourg, will act in such a way as to “march the life” of this sister and her mother: nocturnal raids on the apartment to which she still has the keys, thefts of objects of high sentimental value for both, stalking, intimidating messages, attempts at social and professional discredit, all so subtly conducted that it took four years of handrails, medical certificates in support, to characterize the moral harassment exercised by a man “very intelligent”, “seductive in society”, “cold and calculating”.
“He comes to touch where it hurts”
Very comfortable leading the criminal court of Thionville, the defendant explains his version of the facts, dodges, argues, charms his audience. Then it was his sister’s turn to speak. Physically and psychologically tested, catching her breath in the middle of the sentence, the victim, supported by her mother, struggles to stand the comparison but wins the match of sincerity. The evidence is there: videos of him at night taking objects from the family apartment, threatening his mother, copies of letters intended to professionally discredit his sister, etc. “He comes to touch where he hurts”, underlines the plaintiff’s advice.
The defendant, for his part, claims that, on the contrary, he would try to get away from his family. The prosecution asked for ninety-day fines accompanied by a ban on contacting victims for a period of at least three years. The sentence will be pronounced on October 25.
