He hits two women and rebels: the Montpellier man is condemned for the 18th time

Les gendarmes avaient interpellé l'homme violent à Saint-Jean-de-Védas. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET

Un homme qui avait frappé deux femmes, à Pignan et Saint-Jean-de-Védas, s'était aussi rebellé lors de son interpellation par les gendarmes. Il a écopé d'une peine de prison ferme.

Aged 43, Yoann is a regular at the criminal court. He accumulated 17 convictions from 2003 to 2020, the majority for violence, especially against his partners or exes.

On February 16, in Pignan, he attacked one of them. "He grabbed me by the throat and slapped me, I was sure he was going to kill me tonight- there", she testified.

She had already called the police on January 31, reporting that he was trying to break into her house.

Three months later, just out of prison, he invited himself to one of his acquaintances, to a hotel in Saint-Jean-de-Védas. He punched him. And although he denied this attack, he cannot explain the mark that this violence left on the victim's face.

The gendarmes arrested him, but Yoann rebelled, injuring one of the soldiers in the elbow. So many acts committed repeatedly.

Speaking in a weak voice in front of the judges, the defendant explained that he was drunk that day and did not remember anything. "If the gendarme says it, it’s true".

"I drink too much"

Yoann still remembered that the victim had "slapped him". Which he had never said before. "You have a selective memory", the judge told him.

"Do you have a problem with violence", the president asked. “No, with alcohol, I drink too much”. “But not all alcoholics are violent”.

The forty-year-old has benefited from nine suspended sentences over the years. Five of them have been revoked by the courts. “He failed to seize the opportunities that justice gave him”, observed the prosecutor.

He requested a two-year prison sentence with a committal warrant, and several bans including one from residing in Hérault for three years.

“He is an unfortunate person who is in a logic of failure, argued his lawyer. But he is not a monster. The two victims refused the medical certificate, and there are no witnesses, it is reciprocal violence".

The court did not see it that way. Yoann was sentenced to two years in prison, three months of which were suspended. He is forbidden from approaching his victims.

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