The psychiatric expert who examined Sophie* talks about marital terrorism. This Parisian forties is very anxious to confront her former companion once again. She expects a lot from justice and in particular the protection that she does not feel she has had completely in this case.
>> Femicide: “It’s not true that women don’t speak”, denies the president of the Women’s Foundation
This executive denounces two years of psychological violence – insults, humiliation but also physical violence – punches, a dozen strangulations … When she does not describe scenes where Fabien R. would have pulled her by the hair. During holidays in Savoie, passers-by who witnessed this had even warned the gendarmes.
Even after her breakup in June 2021, Sophie was afraid to file a complaint against the one who, according to her, continued to harass her. She felt “like frozen, paralyzed” through his employment as a police officer. It was a terrible news item that finally convinced her to go to the police station in the 18th arrondissement of Paris: the death in a neighboring arrondissement on January 28 of Amanda Glain under the blows of her companion, also a police officer, Arnaud Bonnefoy.
“The fact that the perpetrator of the violence is a police officer was a means of control. We tend to trust someone who has such a function. Then, this creates additional fear when the violence is committed. Finally, it is an additional obstacle to filing a complaint because he has connections, knows the system, knows how to defend himself, because he also has the easier possibility of taking revenge being the holder of a weapon”, remarks Me Pauline Rongier, Sophie’s lawyer and specialist in domestic violence and feminicide cases.
The SMS exchanges between Fabien R. and Sophie testify to a lot of violence. Fabien R. concedes blows or strangulations several times, including in front of Sophie’s daughter. He makes amends several times. “You’ve been beating me for months (…), you make me live through hell (…) I can’t stand your violence anymore”, she writes. “I do not minimize my actions (…) I am a danger to you but I love you (…) I’m sorry, I’m going to treat myself”, he answers.
Despite everything, the brigadier disputed in police custody the facts of which he is accused. Told him about “reciprocal violence caused by the crises of hysteria and jealousy of his ex-companion (…) today just trying to rot his life”. A man who also received a 6-month suspended prison sentence and a reprimand three years ago for unlawful violence in the context of his police duties. He had beaten a man with batons during an intervention during a fight at the exit of a nightclub. The man targeted by the blows had been neither violent nor involved in the fight.
The judge of freedoms and detention who placed Fabien R. under judicial supervision last March in the case of suspicion of domestic violence, however, did not see fit to withdraw his service weapon. According to our information, the policeman always has a weapon that he can only carry during his hours of service. Sophie is very worried about the use he could make of it. She hopes that the Paris Criminal Court pronounces a ban on carrying weapons. “It is unthinkable that this man accused of serious violence against his ex-girlfriend and who was convicted of police violence keeps his weapon. It is a judicial aberration. We cannot stem the scourge of feminicides by continuing not to protect women who report violence in their relationships”, annoys Me Pauline Rongier.
Anne-Laure Compoint, the lawyer for the police officer who will be tried today, did not wish to respond to our requests. His client faces three years in prison.
*Name has been changed.