No one was sitting on the civil parties' bench, to face the thirty-year-old judged – Wednesday – by the Meaux criminal court, for domestic violence committed in the presence of a minor and for death threats by a spouse. It was in February 2023 that a resident of Coulommiers pushed open the door of a police station to file a complaint. Before leaving the family home and filing for divorce. But to prove his point, no photos and no handrails. Even if the mother - who speaks of kicks, punches, throwing objects and psychological violence over a period of six years - had sometimes confided in relatives.
The investigators therefore relied on the testimonies of two of the couple's three children, those of relatives and those of neighbors. The eldest daughter – who sometimes came between her parents – said she had also been beaten. The teenager, now aged 12, often witnessed the arguments, threats and violence suffered by her mother. The young girl, who hid the knives, would have always known her father to be under alcohol and drugs.
While listening to President Cécile Lemoine read the charge, the accused became annoyed in the box. The magistrate decided to broadcast at the hearing an argument recorded by the victim, without the defendant's knowledge. An audio during which we hear him insulting his wife, in the presence of the children. An incursion into the privacy of this family, tyrannized by the father of the family. “Your wife remains very calm because she knows she is recording. But she didn’t put the words in your mouth,” said Cécile Lemoine. Before emphasizing: “Children are not protected from conflict. They are taken hostage by both parents.”
“It’s a destroyer of lives”
“Even I have trouble hearing it. It's a period of my life. We were both loudmouths. You have to see what I was putting in my head. Today, I have returned to a healthy life,” promised the thirty-year-old, who assures “that he has turned a page”. It is an understatement to say that the defendant had bad alcohol at the time. Not anymore according to him, thanks to his job as a truck driver. Hence this remark from the president: “So, love and respect for your wife and children were not enough. But your work, yes.”
Since June, the father – also tried for violence against two of his children – has had the right to see his two boys in the form of visits in the presence of a mediator. Which do not take place. “They're all going to have to repair themselves. You are not just the victim of alcohol and drugs. You have not made the decision to treat yourself,” insisted the magistrate. Prosecutor Éric de Valroger requested a three-year prison sentence, including 18 months, with a committal warrant: “He traumatized them all, he is a destroyer of lives.” And the prosecutor ironically says: “If we stick to what Mr. says, what is happening to him is very unfair. The slaps were educational and the insults reciprocal.”
Me Anne-Sophie Lance, the defense lawyer, recalled: her client's criminal record is clean. Before insisting that the court only had evidence of arguments, insults and other threats: “But you have nothing to prove physical violence. The testimony of the children? They live with their grandparents with their mother, they no longer see their father, they are manipulated.” The judges handed down a two-year prison sentence, one of which he will serve on semi-release.