“You are a redneck. » This is how a lawyer described his client before the Brest criminal court in November. Tried for sexual harassment, the former gendarme of the Plourin-lès-Morlaix brigade (Finistère) was accused of degrading behavior against a former colleague. He had also threatened to kill the young woman’s companion, declaring: “I hope you fuck her well… If you hurt her, I will kill you.”
This Monday, the criminal court sentenced him to twelve months in prison, suspended. A sentence accompanied by an obligation of care and an obligation to compensate the victims. His name will also be included in the file of perpetrators of sexual or violent offenses (Fijais).
“It’s humiliating, unbearable”
The defendant, now a heavy goods vehicle driver and aged 53, had been the guardian of the victim, then aged 19, when the latter joined the gendarmerie in 2017. For five years, he had increased the outrages and deviant behavior against the young woman, who had declared that she had hesitated to file a complaint. “Every day, we defend victims as gendarmes but, in the very institution of the gendarmerie, there is a big problem,” she testified.
To defend himself, the former gendarme pleaded for “bold” humor and “Bigard-style jokes”, which the president of the Brest court did not appreciate. “When you say: you’re only good at spreading your legs. It’s not crude humor, sir, it’s humiliating, it’s unbearable,” he retorted.