A ditch.
A gulf even, between the perception of a young man - tried for sexual assault - and the repercussions on his "partner".
The Meaux criminal court looked, this Monday, at an evening in May 2022, during which two colleagues - they worked in the same restaurant - had "sexual intercourse" in the defendant's apartment, in Montévrain.
After the complaint filed by the young woman, then aged 18, the defendant - three years her senior - sent her a text message, saying in substance: "If you withdraw your complaint, I will give you a gift".
Hence this comment from President Cécile Lemoine: “There, you are above ground”.
This is the term that seemed to characterize the defendant, very uncomfortable at the bar of the court: above ground.
The debate obviously focused on consent.
And because of the young man's immature personality, we were not far from the consent education course.
“If you insisted, it’s because she didn’t want to”
On the evening of the incident, the waitress - who had met her new colleague the day before - ended up agreeing to go up to his accommodation, despite her fatigue.
Not that she wanted to argue.
But he insisted.
Once there, the situation deteriorated.
The defendant asked him for a hug, then masturbation, then fellatio.
“I gave in because I wanted him to stop and I felt oppressed, trapped,” she explained to investigators.
The judges had to be content with his hearings before the police, the civil party not being present at the hearing.
His lawyer did not hide his embarrassment, his client disappeared.
He could only evoke “the most total immaturity” in which the whole affair is steeped.
President Cécile Lemoine multiplied the questions to try to determine what the defendant had perceived of his guest's non-consent.
“She agreed to come to my house, she lay down on the bed,” he stammered.
“She says she felt forced.
Did you perceive that you were being pushy?
Was it a concern for you to know what she might be feeling?
Don’t look at your lawyer, she wasn’t there,” the magistrate wanted to know.
And the accused blurted out: “I am not the enforcer on duty”.
During the evening, however, he had insisted several times to let her into his home and several more times for the rest.
Hence this common sense remark from an investigator: “If you insisted, it’s because she didn’t want to”.
The defendant agreed: “I didn’t want to hear that she wasn’t saying yes.”
Listening to prosecutor Noémie Béguin request four years in prison, part of which was closed with a deferred committal warrant, he left the room almost in tears.
Before returning there, accompanied by one of his relatives.
The prosecutor spoke of the moral constraint, coupled with physical constraint, exercised on a depressed and therefore vulnerable person: “He put himself on her, he blocked her.
He put his wants and needs ahead of those of the victim, explaining that her brain had shut down.”
Defense lawyer Audrey Sagory - who sharply criticized the procedure - pleaded for acquittal: “My client has difficulty expressing himself, even in the closed session of a law office.
At the time, he was isolated, emotionally immature and inexperienced.
He believed he had a possibility with her. When she didn't want certain acts, they didn't happen.
You have at least some doubt that she expressed non-consent.”
The judges acquitted him “with the benefit of the doubt”.