“Justice has been served after almost three years of fighting, three years of suffering. We will finally be able to rebuild ourselves.” Eyes still red, the mother of little Emilie leaves the courtroom, relieved. Her ex-companion was sentenced to thirty years of criminal imprisonment, accompanied by a security period of 20 years. He was convicted of the attempted premeditated murder of their daughter.
His parental authority withdrawn
The jurors of the Assize Court of Pas-de-Calais, in Saint-Omer, however, did not follow the requisitions of the Advocate General: life imprisonment, what Emilie’s mother also hoped, “because Emilie took life imprisonment until the end of her life”. Her daughter, aged eight at the time, was 70% burned, trapped in the car thrown against a post by his father
. A witness explains having taken her out of the car, a version disputed by the father.
The defendant remained stoic during most of the proceedings. If he burst into tears at the time of his lawyer’s argument, his face showed no emotion at the time of the verdict. In the courtroom, her mother lets out a cry. In addition to the prison sentence, his son was deprived of his parental authority, and will have to submit to socio-judicial follow-up for nine years upon his release from prison. He will then be banned from seeing Emilie and her mother for six years.
Many gray areas remain
“It’s complicated to rebuild yourself, I was waiting for answers, I didn’t get them all”, regrets Kentin, his son. The defendant made no confession but different versions of the accident during the investigation. “Instead of responding, the accused lost himself in details and continued with explanations just as far-fetched as those he had provided during the information”, abounds Maître Marie-Hélène Casanova-Servas, the lawyer for Emilie’s family.
For Maître Braud, the defense lawyer, the sometimes contradictory assessments of the experts did not make it possible to shed light on the circumstances. “The expertise was very complicated because the vehicle having been completely burned, it could not be possible to retrace the scenario.” Many gray areas remain, such as the reasons for buying the cans of gasoline, their location in the car and the traces of gasoline found on Emilie, when her father had almost none.
Ten days to appeal
“Emilie was in no condition to really remember what happened so we do not have the word of the victim”adds Maître Braud, who also underlines the influence of reactions on social networks, a “breaking wave” hateful comments according to his client. He now has ten days to appeal.