2023-10-29 07:36:00
“My head doesn’t mean anything to you?”
The situation is still special. “For me, there is no problem: you have not handled the file”, intervenes Albert’s lawyer. “But maybe your client remembers me…” replies the president. To find out for certain, the inmate was brought up from the cells of the Brussels courthouse. A plump sixty-year-old enters the room, flanked by two police officers.
“Do you know me?” asks the magistrate. The defendant, a little stunned, makes a sign of denial. “My head doesn’t mean anything to you?”, insists the judge. “No…”, replies the other, perplexed. “Your face doesn’t mean anything to me either,” said the president.
The matter can therefore be taken up. Shaggy and unshaven, Albert (65 years old) is mainly prosecuted for willful battery, rape of a vulnerable person and attack on sexual integrity and arbitrary detention of another woman. The person concerned exclaims, offended: “I can swear to God that I did not do that”. The president interrupts: “You must never swear! Especially since according to the law, you are the only one who can lie.” The defendant retreats. “Ah sorry, Mr. President.”
Sketch of justice: the driver drove too slowly for his liking
Noise, screams and screams
Divorced and father of four children, Albert is disabled “on mutual insurance”, following a self-employed career. Above all, he has a solid judicial curriculum: six criminal convictions spanning twenty years. Albert’s number one problem is his drinking. When he drinks, he goes into a tailspin. And he drinks really a lot. The residents of the building he lives in in Auderghem know something regarding it. When they meet him in the morning in the stairwell, he is kind, friendly and good-natured. After midday, he yells, becomes aggressive and uncontrollable. Neighbors describe noise, screams and women screaming. They are afraid of him. The defendant must also hold a sort of record: 102 police intervention sheets addressed to him!
Victims lured into a trap
Albert regularly attracts vulnerable women to his home by offering them a drink or a bed. Madame Leduc (not her real name), a prostitute, filed a complaint once morest him in January 2023. At the hearing, she recounts how she was trapped. “I had already met him. He came to the neighborhood where I work and asked me to come to his house for paid sex. We pay in advance for an hour: it’s 50 euros.” An all-inclusive package. Madame Leduc slipped them into the lining of her bag.
Sketch of justice: the defendant’s legal past speaks for him
At the end of the allotted time, the gentleman felt that he had not had his account. But time is money, “and it was well past,” continues the complainant. She then gathers her things and prepares to leave. “And then he punched me in the face. Afterwards, I don’t remember anything. The black hole.” When she regains her senses, the fifty-year-old is on a bus heading home. In a bad state. She has bruises everywhere, no underwear left, and bruises covering her thighs, making her think he raped her. “Anyway, he hit me!” Albert no longer really knows what happened. Alcohol drowned out his memories. “I may have pushed her.”
“I am still a man…”
Another woman, temporarily homeless, filed a complaint a few weeks later. She slept at the defendant’s house, at his invitation, to avoid ending up at the night reception for homeless people. She felt caresses. “I say it honestly – I am still a man: I masturbated. But I didn’t penetrate her!” He also admits to having locked the door and admits to having given “a slap in the face” because she had insulted him as a son of a bitch. “I lost my mind.” The medical certificate mentions injuries to the face, back, legs, as well as a 12-centimeter cut to the groin. “You must have a heavy hand,” notes the president. “I was dead drunk. I do not remember anymore.” When he drinks, he becomes a brute and sees women as flesh, summarizes a neighbor.
Sketch of justice: when the third half degenerates
If there remains any doubt concerning the rape of Madame Leduc, the other violence, physical and sexual, has been established, believes the prosecution. The defendant presents a worrying profile and an “extremely high” risk of recidivism given the pattern in which he has been trapped for more than 20 years, adds the prosecutor. Which demands the maximum for the charges: 5 years in prison. “I don’t want to take any risk for society.”
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