He advances, dressed all in black, at the bar of the Thionville Criminal Court. Short, dark hair, trimmed beard, he speaks slowly, sometimes interrupts, smiles, then holds back sobs. He promises he didn’t drink before the hearing. But he confesses his worries with alcohol. He had been drinking heavily the day the gendarmes arrested him at his home in Richemont in May 2022.
His ex-girlfriend had just filed two complaints in two days. She mentions punches received on her thighs, another blow given in front of their two-year-old daughter, death threats as well as sexual assaults committed while she was sleeping on the sofa. In particular, he woke her up by ejaculating on her face.
The couple cohabited before separating. Several disputes broke out. “She scores quickly”, loose the defendant when the president evokes the traces of blows left on the thighs of the victim. “I don’t score”, continues the thirty-year-old handler to justify certain reciprocal violence. He does not dispute the offenses with which he is charged, even if he does not remember everything. “The sexual thing, I will never forgive myself,” he agrees.
Duty of care
The boy doesn’t have a lawyer. He talks about his daughter, repeats that he wants to see her, that he didn’t see her at Christmas. “My ex is waiting for me to freak out,” he says. The victim did not attend the trial. She is a civil party, but only claims a symbolic euro.
The court follows the requisitions of the public prosecutor who demanded “a mixed sentence in view of the gravity of the facts”. He sentences the defendant to three years in prison, one year of which is fixed, subject to conversion. The two years of suspended sentence will be subject to the obligations to treat his alcohol problems and to work. He will also be banned from appearing at his ex’s home for two years. The court also orders his registration in the computerized file of perpetrators of sexual offences.
The name of the defendant is not communicated to protect the minor victim.
