How was the bus driver, a robust fifty-year-old who weighed nearly 100 kg, so seriously injured by the bare-handed blows of the two young men of less imposing build? The Pyrénées-Atlantiques Assize Court listened this Monday to the explanations of forensic doctor Larbi Benali, who carried out the autopsy of Philippe Monguillot, who died on July 10, 2020 after an altercation with two young people, five days before. Until Thursday, Wyssem Manai and Maxime Guyennon, 25, are on trial in Pau for intentional violence leading to death without intention of causing it.
The physical violence began around 7 p.m. inside the bus with a headbutt by Philippe Monguillot to Wyssem Manai, as evidenced by the videos shown at the hearing. We see the bus driver surrounded by several young people, who were “rowding” at the back of the bus, in the words of a police investigator. The dispute would concern the wearing of a mask, compulsory during this period of health crisis. Young people are not the only ones not to comply with the rule and we see on the video, two passengers who hasten to put on their masks when they see the driver disembark at the back of the bus. The forensic doctor is categorical “the headbutt could not have caused any injuries” to the driver.
“Sounded like a boxer after a knockout. »
After this impulse, everything happens quickly. The bus driver is thrown out of the bus and the scene where he receives blows mainly to the face, from the two accused as they both recognize, is off camera. We know, for example, that he then suffered from a fracture under the left orbit “which could have been generated by a kick, because the diffuse ecchymotic spot evokes a larger surface than a punch” comments Doctor Larbi Benali, expert at the Bordeaux Court of Appeal.
In the images from the last video, we see that Philippe Monguillot gets up and walks towards his cabin, walking alongside his tram bus. “He is groggy, unstable in his lower limbs,” underlines the expert. We can say that he is stunned like a boxer after a knockout. » The last punch is delivered by Wyssem Manai. “He is then no longer in the physical condition to defend himself,” specifies the expert. The blow will cause him to fall, with his skull hyperextended at the back, because he no longer has any tone. In the images, without the sound, we see that he falls full length onto the asphalt, without trying to hold on. Witnesses at the scene say that a loud noise was heard. This fall on a heavy plane caused a fracture at the top of the skull which completely crossed the cranial vault, over nearly 17 centimeters.
What are the fatal blows?
The two accused punched and kicked him in the first phase, when he was on the ground. But, Maxime Guyennon later tries to hold Wyssem Manai back, when the driver gets up. And it is Wyssem Manai who deals the last blow. Hence the importance of knowing the effects of the different blows dealt.
“It is because there is this first phase of violence, that there is this second lethal phase,” says Doctor Larbi Benali. But, questioned by Maître Frédéric Dutin, Maxime Guyennon’s lawyer, he also declared that “the blows to the face have no lethal impact”. He estimates the interruption of ITT working time at fifteen days, if we only consider the blows before he gets back up. “It weighs almost 100 kg and it falls like a leaf,” observes the forensic doctor. We can think that this punch extinguished all his vigilance functions and the head trauma became lethal.”
As soon as he was taken care of by the emergency services, Philippe Monguillot’s life was in danger. “The prognosis was irreversible after the shock,” comments the expert. He would have suffered permanent disability if by some miracle he had escaped. »