“At the slightest frustration, he exploded in rage, he became uncontrollable. As soon as he had no more words, he used violence”. For almost three years, Fiona * will face almost daily excesses of anger and blows from Yannick N., her former boyfriend. This Friday, before the Paris Assize Court, it will take nearly two hours for the 29-year-old young woman, interspersed with heavy silences and sobs, to recount “the hell” that the streamer made her live, more known as “Mr WaynZ”. The man, 34 years old today, has been tried since Tuesday by the Paris Assize Court for attempted murder, rape and kidnapping of four former companions.
When she met Yannick N. in 2015, Fiona was 22, she lived in Bordeaux. She has just separated from her former partner. Plunged into a deep depression, the young woman spends her time playing video games. This is where she meets the streamer. The contact passes immediately, they have the same passion. “At first, he was a very funny and very amusing person,” she says at the helm, arms crossed and shoulders hunched. For more than a year, this laboratory technician went to his house in Paris several times. But as the months go by, the streamer displays a completely different personality. The young man, whom she describes as jealous and possessive, easily gets angry, insults her, prevents her from going out and gradually cuts her off from those close to her.
“I was under the influence”
At the end of July 2017, “this is where it starts to deteriorate”, says the young woman, sobbing. In addition to anger, blows are now added. “It was for anything, when the cat’s litter was dirty, when the dishes were badly done, when a dish was not hot enough. It was slaps, shoves and insults”. One evening, an argument broke out between the two, Yannick hit her, knocked her to the ground and chained kicks and punches, especially in the face. The young woman manages to get up and goes to lock herself in the bathroom. “I couldn’t leave the apartment, he had locked it and put it in his pocket. He did that every time.” The man bangs on the door and tells her to open it, but she refuses. She remains prostrate for several hours, “waiting for him to calm down”, she describes, before marking a long silence. “That’s when I started to get really scared. I had nowhere to go, no money, no friends. I was nothing without him. It’s as if he had entered my brain, that he was my only solution. I was under control”.
Fiona lives in fear, even in the marital bed. One evening, Yannick asks for sex, but the young woman has a stomach ache and refuses. Her companion begs her before exploding with rage. He belittles her, threatens to look elsewhere and bangs on the walls. “I was terrified, I wondered what he was going to do to me. I preferred to say yes and wait for it to pass, ”she confides during her testimony, her back still turned to the accused. In November 2017, Yannick is at Paris Games Week, the video game fair. She takes advantage of his absence to collect her belongings and take refuge with her brother. “I left overnight, telling him it was over,” explains the young woman.
“Either I defend myself or I die”
But their separation only lasts a few months and she moves back in with the streamer in March 2018. And history repeats itself endlessly. Yannick “becomes nice again”, stops the beatings, tells him that he is going to undergo therapy, that he is going to change. “I don’t know why I believed him. I was so convinced that I was nothing without him that I would rather have him than anyone,” Fiona admits. The lull only lasts for a while, before “hell” begins again in September 2018. Yet another argument breaks out. The man hits her, trips her and strangles her. As she begins to gasp, Fiona grabs the first thing that comes to hand, a knife, and stabs her in the arm. “I said to myself, it’s either I defend myself or I die”, she says, evoking “an instinct for survival”. Shocked, she rushes to give him a tourniquet and call the fire department. “He said to me, ‘You say it’s an accident or I’ll kill you. You’re not saying anything,'” she continues.
But in addition to the firefighters, it is the gendarmes who come to the home of the streamer. The two spouses are taken to the police station for their statements. Yannick comes out free, but Fiona is taken into custody. Both prosecuted for reciprocal violence, they will receive the same sentence in March 2019, four months in prison suspended. “I don’t understand why there was no investigation, why he came out free, why I was the one who was seen as the bad guy who took a knife to survive when he hit me for three years,” she asked the court. “But why stay if you’re describing hell?” », asks the Advocate General. “Out of fear and out of control,” Fiona replies. He convinced me that I couldn’t live without him, that he was indispensable to me. He controlled my mind, my money, my movements. I was no longer myself”.
“It’s serious what I did”
Traumatized, the young woman remains prostrate at home for several months. “I moved to Vendée to make sure he doesn’t find me. I was convinced that he was following me, that he was on every street corner. He always told me that if he went to prison because of me, he would take revenge”, hardly to tell the young woman, who explained to have adopted a Malinois dog, educated in defense. “If you had to sum up this man in one word? “, continues the Advocate General. “It’s the devil on Earth,” Fiona concludes after more than two hours on the stand, taking care never to look at her former companion.
It was only a few hours later, after hearing a witness, that the floor was given to Yannick. Arched back, shaved head and emaciated face, the streamer, who got rid of the long beard he wore at the time of the events, got up at the invitation of the president. “I have mixed feelings about the story she delivered,” he began at the microphone of his glass box. “It’s true, it’s serious what I did,” he added, acknowledging the facts of kidnapping. “I kept him from going out, sometimes for an hour or two. I have no excuse for that”. But the young man, “jealous and possessive” in his own words, was only “responding” to the insults and blows of his former girlfriend, he explained about the acts of violence with which he is accused. The trial is still due to continue until February 10.
*Names have been changed.