“My mother and stepfather argued over nonsense again.” A 10-year-old boy once again witnessed a marital quarrel on December 4, which resulted in his mother being beaten in the face. It was more or less 11 pm when, at the end of a very alcoholic evening, the thirty-something loses his temper when he notices that the little cat has peed on the bed and on his jacket which was lying there. He grabs the animal and wants to throw it out. His companion intervenes. He then grabs her by the back of her neck and “bangs her head against the kitchen splashback and the refrigerator”. The young woman loses consciousness for a few seconds then regains consciousness, the brow bone and little finger bleeding. The man living in Audun-le-Tiche advances a more watered down version at the bar of the Thionville judicial court. “I punched her and it was she who, falling, banged her head against the credenza.” He admits to having drunk more than reason that evening, to have hit her, to have left before “the situation escalates” but “he nitpicks on the details”, as underlined by the public prosecutor in the preamble of his indictment . An episode of violence which is reminiscent of a few others like in 2019 on Christmas Eve, when because the neighbors had complained about the noise, he had angrily threw the speaker against the door, then pushed and hit violently his companion who tried to calm him down. Blows, she had also received in May 2018.
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“It’s hard to leave …”
He drinks too much sometimes, he recognizes it and he can no longer control himself. At the mention of the facts, of the situation of his couple, he bursts into tears. “We must stop there. We should have already left six months ago… but it’s hard to leave… ”
“We are not in a situation of daily, repeated domestic violence. It is violence that has alcohol as a common denominator, ”points out the defense. Sentenced to a twelve-month prison sentence with a probationary suspension of two years, he will have to take care of himself and no longer appear at home or come into contact with his partner.
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