Illustration of the penal code, here at the Ille-et-Vilaine assizes in Rennes. – C. Allain / APEI / 20 Minutes
A 33-year-old man was sentenced Friday by the Côtes-d’Armor Assize Court to 30 years of criminal imprisonment with a two-thirds security sentence for stabbing his partner to death. The body of Claire Bouchaud, medical secretary, was found partially naked in a bramble tree on May 7, 2017 by a walker near a farm, about twenty kilometers from Saint-Brieuc.
His companion had been indicted for aggravated murder. The autopsy of the young woman’s body had made it possible to “characterize a violent death following a stabbing injury to the heart,” said the prosecutor of the Republic of Saint-Brieuc Bertrand Leclerc at the time.
“A lot of gray areas”, according to the lawyer of the accused
According to the testimonies collected by the investigators, the companion of the young woman suffered from drug problems and the family climate within the couple was very tense. In addition to his prison sentence, the accused was also inflicted with the final withdrawal of parental authority, the couple having had a four-year-old child at the time of the tragedy.
“It is an extremely heavy sentence in an extremely fragile case with a lot of gray areas. A case in which doubt should benefit the accused, “said defense lawyer, Thomas Jourdain-Demars, who announced that his client would” appeal the decision “.