A former pizzeria boss suspected of rape and sexual assault has been released pending appeal. This Saturday, January 28, in Beuzeville (Eure), around fifty people gathered to shout their anger and their incomprehension.
They are between 24 and 58 years old and are four victims of harassment, sexual assault or rape. In the sights of these women: their former employer, a pizzeria manager.
On May 5, 2022, he was sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment by the Eure Assize Court for acts committed between 2015 and 2018. After eight months in detention, on January 10, 2023, the man was finally released and placed under judicial supervision pending his appeal trial, which will begin on June 12, 2023.
An incomprehensible situation for the victims. “It is an injustice. Now I’m the one in jail. I live 15 minutes from his house, I don’t even dare to go out anymore, I have to undergo psychological care, but I’m afraid to go, I stay locked up at home“, laments Élodie, one of the victims.
The alleged perpetrator now lives in Calvados. In the fragile lives of these women, fear resurfaced…”I’m so scared to meet him, I have to ask someone to come shopping with me. Me, I suffer and he is free”confides to us the young woman, her throat knotted.
For us, it’s a double jeopardy. Our life stops. We don’t live anymore, it’s survival with the fear of meeting him again, the anguish. It’s hell every day. I am 24 years old and my life as a woman has been destroyed.
This decision is experienced as an injustice for these women. For their lawyer, the release of this man could have been avoided.
“This gathering is not to challenge a presumption of innocence to which obviously all lawyers are attached. It is simply to denounce a release with harmful consequences for the victims, knowing that the presumption of innocence does not necessarily imply a release.“, denounces Maître Sylvain Naviaux, the lawyer for a civil party.