“I’m in prison, he’s free,” says Océane, very angry. Last October, the 23-year-old young woman came face to face in the Victoire district, in Bordeaux, with the fifty-year-old against whom she filed a complaint, two years earlier, for “rape at gunpoint “. The latter spent two years in pre-trial detention before being released on September 12, three months before his trial which begins this Thursday, before the Gironde assizes.
“I met him on a street corner, between Cours Victor Hugo and Sainte-Catherine, I was alone,” the young woman tells 20 minutes. The man, a homeless man, plays the guitar. At that moment, he does not see her. Océane will then turn on her heels and rarely go out, escorted each time. And also terrified by thinking that this fifty-year-old can still, despite his judicial control, attack other women.
“The criminological dangerousness is high”
Océane, has been off work for six weeks. The master 2 student at Sciences po Bordeaux, who had just started a work-study program in a community, remembers July 31, 2021. That day, then aged 20, she participated in a marauding in the Victoire sector . A fifty-year-old in a wheelchair whom she describes as “a jovial character that everyone greets in the neighborhood”, arouses her curiosity by talking to her about witchcraft, a field of investigation for this student keen on anthropology and sociology.
Me Fabienne Gouteyron, Océane’s lawyer, also recalls that the accused has a history since he was convicted in 2018 for sexual assault. The council also points to the psychiatric expert report which mentions “that the criminological dangerousness is high, whether it is the risk of a new violent act or a new sexual attack”. Requested by the associations La Maison d’Ella and Family Planning of Gironde, the public prosecutor’s office mentioned that it was also in favor of extending the detention of the accused, released by decision of the investigating chamber .
Océane has been off work for six weeks. The master 2 student at Sciences po Bordeaux, who had just started a work-study program in a community, remembers July 31, 2021. That day, then aged 20, she participated in a marauding in the Victoire sector . A fifty-year-old in a wheelchair whom she describes as “a jovial character that everyone greets in the neighborhood”, arouses her curiosity by talking to her about witchcraft, a field of investigation for this student keen on anthropology and sociology.
“He told me: ‘I’m going to kill you’”
While he made her sit on a cushion in a basement in the Victoire parking lot, he got out of his chair to walk towards her and took out a 15-centimeter knife. “He told me: ‘I’m going to kill you,’” Océane tells 20 minutes. I was between two walls and a car, I found myself trapped. » The young woman remembers offering money to her attacker, begging him not to touch her. Then a couple enters the parking lot, nearby. A message of hope for Océane who hopes that her cries will be heard. In vain, the duo gets into their car and Océane sees “her life flash before her eyes”.
It will be a woman and her dog, who particularly insists on dragging her mistress towards the stage, who will put an end to the young woman’s ordeal. The walker “saw the attacker’s buttocks”, says Océane, who fears that the latter, who hides his weapon under a hat, will also attack his “savior”. This woman “thanks to whom everything stops”, according to Me Fabienne Gouteyron, will be a leading witness at the trial which opens this Thursday. Without going into details, the lawyer says “she saw an attitude on the part of the accused which did not give rise to confusion”. She provided “precise and detailed testimony which supports the guilt of the accused”.
“A photographic experience of the scene”
Océane assures, for her part, that she was not properly oriented after her complaint, finding herself alone, for example, during the confrontation. “We do not leave a victim in a criminal procedure without a lawyer, without support,” points out Annie Carrareto seriously. It was only on October 16 that the student enlisted the support of a lawyer. Océane, who never varied in her statements, keeps “a photographic experience of the scene”, underlines her lawyer.
Followed for months by the regional psychotrauma center, Océane lives a “daily life very altered by all of this”, assures Me Gouteyron. The young woman nevertheless remains determined on the eve of the hearing and has not requested a closed session. “It’s a public problem and it’s not my place to be afraid,” says Océane courageously. And her lawyer concludes: “she has both a great fragility within her, which we completely understand, and an extremely impressive strength. »