This end of the day of October 26 was mild, the weather mild, the temperatures pleasant, when these Nivernais spouses left the restaurant after celebrating their three years of marriage.
But the evening is cut short for the couple, who sees Thomas Verbeke, 20, attacking two women. A first was walking her dog, and for lack of wanting to discuss with this man who scares her so much he is alcoholic [NDLR : il avait 2,19 g d’alcool par litre de sang], he gets annoyed. And crosses the path of the second Neversoise. He wants her to shake his hand. Refusal. He slaps her on the head.
The couple intervenes, the first victim, who will one day have ITT, manages to escape. The husband receives a violent blow of the head, the blood spurts. His wife gets punched. The first victim is in turn thrown to the ground. The defendant, he goes to get an empty bottle to hit the man in the forearm.
It’s lamentable, it’s the alcohol, I myself wasn’t aware of what I was doing. I’m a nice person, except that I fell into alcohol
“It could have been dramatic,” notes Aurélie Priet, lawyer for one of the victims.
“We still have ITTs on all sides,” notes the council.
In the couple, the husband has 5 days of ITT – just like the lady thrown on the ground – his wife 3.
The four victims are present during the judgment of their attacker, this Friday, October 28, the stigmata of this aggression on their bodies, but especially in their minds. Before this evening, they did not know each other, but leave marked, and now linked.
“He’s not a nice person as he says”, protests a victim, while, in the box of the accused, Thomas Verbeke claims not to understand his behavior. “It’s lamentable, it’s the alcohol, I myself was not aware of what I was doing. I am a nice person, except that I fell into alcohol, ”he says during his first appearance in court.
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Only, the criminal record of Thomas Verbeke does not plead in his favor. With twelve convictions including ten when he was a minor, his career as a delinquent is against him. In 2021, he goes twice, seven days apart, to appear immediately in Lille … for aggravated violence.
Faced with this, representing the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Marie-Christine Woldanski shoots him with questions: “Are you making fun of justice? “, ” you do what you want ? », « How many times will we see you again? “. Suddenly, the big fellow sags, his shoulders retract, his head is lowered. He seems to want to disappear.
Of “gratuitous violence”
The public prosecutor therefore requires two years’ imprisonment, including 10 months accompanied by a suspended probation, and with a warrant of committal for this “purely gratuitous violence” which is “traumatic for the victims” and with “effects on the whole Population “.
For Marie-Christine Woldanski, the guilt of alcohol does not hold. “There is a personality behind it,” she says. She reminds Thomas Verbeke: “Not all alcoholic people are violent”.
Élodie Picard, representing the interests of Thomas, agrees to request a probationary reprieve, to help her client, “a 20-year-old man, with no resources and who does not know what to do”.
In its deliberation, the criminal court went beyond the sentence required by the prosecution and sentenced Thomas Verbeke to two years’ imprisonment, including six months of probation reinforced for two years, with obligations of care, work, to carry out 105 hours of community service and to compensate the victims.
For the eighteen firm months to be carried out, a warrant of deposit has been issued.
Marie Lemaitre
marie.lemaitre@centrefrance.com
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