A 21-year-old man was sentenced to five years in prison, two of which were suspended, by the Montpellier Criminal Court. He had sequestered a woman of the same age, from February 15 to 20, in a cellar of a residence in the Hérault prefecture.
If she was not locked up there, she was totally under the influence of her torturer, with whom she was still in love. She slept on a carpet placed on the floor and had no access to hygiene.
Call for life-saving help from workers on a construction site
Regularly beaten, the young woman had been forced to rob her own parents twice. It was during the second burglary that she had found the strength to warn workers working on a nearby site.
They had then warned the police who had put an end to his ordeal. On the run, his attacker was arrested a few days later on a deal point, in Marseille.