On the benches of the Thionville court, Tuesday, January 10, defendants and victims face each other. Without trying to make eye contact. The patriarch of the blended family is prosecuted for violence against minors, the children then living under his roof, and the mother for non-denunciation of ill-treatment. Now everyone is cared for by relatives. The teenagers no longer live in the Mondelangeois home. Only the father and the mother reside there, as well as the youngest.
The first facts date back to 2019, the latest date from 2021. Over this period of time, President Philippe Rousseau describes the daily life of the whole tribe. “Hell,” he blurts out. At the helm, the testimonies of young people follow one another. Spitting, pulled hair, no phone to call for help… One of them even went so far as to say that that day, the defendant took him by the neck “for a dessert story” that he shouldn’t have taken. He saw himself “dying.” Difficult then to hide the corpse and to shut up suddenly what was happening at home, “split, determined, the young man during the hearing.
“The children did not let themselves be done, and neither were we”
United, the couple does not let go of its line of defense. Yes, there were slaps, insults, arguments, big ones sometimes, but it was because one of the teenagers was then in crisis, difficult to manage. More generally, “the children did not let it go and neither did we”, concedes the mother, suspected of taking her man’s side each time and of reproaching the young people after the fact for their attitudes towards her husband.
Pointing out the inconsistency of having left two children in this home where “hell” reigned, despite the intervention of social services, the defense lawyer endeavored to demonstrate that the father had never denied having slapped and for having used unfriendly terms towards those who expressed “their outbursts of rejection” towards the respondent. All the difficulty of acceptance of the members of a blended family. The council also argued that the mother was indeed present for her children, in particular by supporting them in their steps, care or schooling.
The judge and his assessors have decided. Twelve months suspended probation for the husband who loses parental authority over his youngest daughter. He will have to take care of himself, follow a parental responsibility course and compensate the members of his siblings (€1,000 for one of them and an amount to be specified later for another, during a dismissal hearing on interest civilians), like his wife for that matter. The mother is given a 4-month simple suspended sentence.
