Monday, May 29, at the end of the evening, a 26-year-old man was attacked with a machete in front of the Henri Fréville metro station. Seriously injured, he had taken refuge inside the station before dying a few moments later. The next day, a ten-second video showing his agony was posted on social media and went viral.
A young girl, aged 18, was arrested a week later by the police. In police custody, she admitted having filmed the sequence. A few days later, two relatives of hers, her boyfriend and his sister, were in turn arrested. They were, for their part, accused of having broadcast the video.
A well-attended trial
This Wednesday, the three defendants appeared before the Rennes court. Accused of complicity in violence, dissemination of the recording of images relating to the commission of a voluntary attack on the integrity of the person and failure to assist a person in danger, the young girl at the origin of the video is defended at the bar in a small, timid voice. Without any criminal record, she was particularly impressed in front of the crowd present in the room.
“When I saw blood on the ground that night, it shocked me, I took out my phone without thinking,” she says. “I got closer, he fell next to me, I was very scared, and at that moment my phone continued to film. I then went back up to look for people. »
Video surveillance
CCTV from the metro station shows her slowly descending the steps, phone in hand, before stopping when the injured man collapses at her feet on the stairs. We then see him going up the stairs in the opposite direction before meeting three other people at the top of the stairs. It was one of them who contacted the fire department while the young girl was leaving the premises by taking the elevator.
“Why your reflex was not to call the emergency services”, questions the president. “I didn’t think about it at the time, I saw too much blood, I panicked,” defends the student at Rennes 2 University. protect me. »
She apologized
The president tells her that she has “difficulty understanding” that she is losing her means “to call for help but not to film”. “The offense is to show the images of a person who is the victim of violence,” she continues.
On the verge of tears and visibly distraught, the young girl apologizes to the victim’s family. “I’m bad, I apologize to the family, I won’t do it again. “She says” to be in shock “and no longer find sleep since that evening. Her lawyer, Me Tessier, adds that she also consults a psychologist as part of her judicial review.
Telephone Expertise
In addition to not assisting anyone in danger and having filmed the scene, he is accused of having sent the video to other people. The expertise of her phone showed that she had indeed broadcast the short sequence a few moments later to her mother and her boyfriend. “Reassuring figures when she was in a state of shock”, develops her lawyer to try to explain her gesture.
This is not a normal reaction!
Recipient of this footage, her 20-year-old boyfriend then forwarded the video to her 22-year-old older sister. The latter herself rebroadcast the extract in a “private message” via the social network Snapchat. This allowed about ten people in his close circle to view this content. A small circle of which his 16-year-old little sister was a part.
“You claim to have been shocked by this viewing,” the public prosecutor told him. “If it really shocked you, why show it to so many people? This is not a normal reaction! »
viral video
The next day, the video was posted publicly on the social network Twitter and has been viewed tens of thousands of times. But the sister of the victim’s boyfriend denies having published this content in public. Same version for the boyfriend, whose phone remains untraceable.
“Only you and the defendant’s mother received the video,” the president reminds him. “Since we can’t find your phone, we can’t verify your statements. “I have a habit of losing my phones,” defends the young man who works in a sorting center. “My room is under construction right now, maybe I’ll find him soon. The brother and sister are accused of broadcasting the recording of images relating to the commission of a willful attack on the integrity of the person.
“Eternal Suffering”
Before the prosecutor’s requisitions, Me Abachkina, lawyer for the civil party, speaks on behalf of the victim’s family, speaking directly to the young girl who shot the video. “You explain that you will not start again, but the video will always start again,” says the lawyer. “We spend a lot of time with the family to have the video deleted, which reappears regularly on social networks. You have subjected them to eternal suffering. The mother of the young man killed will face for a very long time images of the agony of her son who was filmed like a circus beast. »
The law does not command anyone to be a hero
The public prosecutor evokes “a lack of humanity” and requires an 18-month suspended prison sentence against the young girl who filmed and six months suspended sentence for the brother and sister accused of having broadcast the extract. During her indictment, the prosecutor did not fail to remind the whole room of the heroic action of a homeless person that evening. “Humanity is this homeless gentleman who immediately rescued the injured man and gave him cardiac massage until help arrived. “A gesture which, unfortunately, did not save his life.
Suspended prison sentence
For his part, the defense lawyer, requested a release of all charges against his client. “No, she didn’t film the scene of a murder, no she didn’t refrain from helping, no she didn’t broadcast the video. My client cannot be a scapegoat for others. One cannot confuse his acts with the acts of those who committed the murder of the victim, and who, moreover, were not arrested. Nor can it be the scapegoat for a social phenomenon which is the relationship we all have with mobile phones. The law does not require him to call for help but to call for help. That’s what she did, we can see it on the CCTV. Faced with such a situation, everyone would have reacted differently. The law does not command anyone to be a hero. »
After a brief adjournment, the court finally found the author of the video guilty of the various charges against her – with the exception of complicity in violence. The young woman was given a 15-month suspended prison sentence and will have to complete a compulsory citizenship course.
Accused of having broadcast the video, her boyfriend and his sister received a six-month suspended prison sentence and a compulsory citizenship course. They have ten days to appeal this decision.
2023-07-19 23:23:14
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