Three additional years for a drama that had moved a whole department and even beyond… The Douai Court of Appeal increased on Friday to 28 years of criminal imprisonment the sentence imposed on Yanis’ father-in-law, for the murder of the five-year-old boy, who died in 2017 during a punishment for wetting the bed. During the five days of hearing, Julien Masson, sentenced at first instance to 25 yearscontinued to deny most of the beatings and forced swimming in a canal in the middle of February.
“He has changed little in his statements: he needs to invent a story so as not to collapse”, estimated his counsel, Me Stéphane Daquo, who had pleaded for a reclassification of the facts as mortal blows, arguing that he had struck blows with no intention of killing.
“From the moment he disputed the slightest incriminating element, it is difficult to believe him when he speaks of his intentions”, indicated for his part Me Philippe Broyart, lawyer for a civil party association. The prosecution had requested 30 years with a security period of 20 years and five years of socio-judicial follow-up. He was finally sentenced to 28 years for murder and violence once morest his partner’s son, accompanied by 5 years of socio-judicial follow-up, but without a security period.
Several blows, including one to the head
On the night of February 5 to 6, 2017, Yanis was found lying on a jacket, in soaked underwear and covered with around thirty bruises, near the unsanitary cabin in Aire-sur-La-Lys (Pas-de-Calais). ) where his mother and stepfather used to spend weekends with him. According to the autopsy, he succumbed to head trauma following a violent impact.
During the first interrogations, Julien Masson had explained that the child had fallen inanimate following running along a canal in a temperature of 5 degrees, a punishment he inflicted on him for having wet the bed.
According to the investigation, they left the shed between midnight and 12:30 a.m., Julien Masson following Yanis on a bicycle for several kilometres. The child was immersed in the canal and received several violent blows, including one on the skull, causing death according to the autopsy.
At first instance, Julien Masson had tried to explain Yanis’s injuries by successive “falls”, before admitting “a few blows”, including “a dry” on the skull using a flashlight. Sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were suspended for non-impediment of crime, the mother of the child, Émilie Inglard, had not appealed.
