Lizzy Davies in Versailles
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 January 2010 20.52 GMT
The niece of a British minister who admitted stabbing to death a man she had picked up in a bar and taken back to her apartment for sex was last night sentenced to 15 years in jail for his murder.
Jessica Davies, a niece of Quentin Davies and a model whom prosecutors described as possessing "the devil's beauty", remained impassive as she was told she had been found guilty of murdering Olivier Mugnier, a 24-year-old French graduate, in November 2007.
Mugnier, who had met Davies in a pub in the chic Parisian suburb of St-German-en-Laye, was found by police with a fatal wound to his chest caused by a kitchen knife which Davies, 30, had previously used to try to kill herself.
The pair had tried to have sex but stopped after Mugnier failed to perform, the Versailles criminal court heard. The young woman, whom prosecutors characterised as a psychologically disturbed seductress, claimed to have no memory of what happened next.
When she opened the door of her flat to police, having called the emergency services herself at around 2.30am, the court heard that she told them: "It's me who did that, I'm a monster. I wanted to cut him a bit and it went right in."
When making her plea for the court to jail Davies for 12 years – a sentence lighter than that subsequently handed down – prosecutor Myriam Quemener argued yesterday that the troubled woman had a habit of using men as "pure sex objects" on which to inflict her distress.
"She had ambivalent feelings of desire and hatred towards men," the court was told in a citation from a psychiatrist's report. "Olivier failed to fill the void in [her]. Instead of taking it out on herself, Olivier freed her destructiveness."
Davies, whose father, Richard, is the younger brother of Labour MP Quentin Davies, told the court that she was "horrified" by her actions – even if she could not explain them. "What I did terrifies me. I don't even dare ask Olivier's family for forgiveness," she told the jury. "I want to express the extent of my remorse. I assume the responsibility and consequences of what I did."
Minutes after the verdict was read out, Davies, who had shown no emotion for the duration of the two-day trial, was laughing and joking with police officers guarding her. As well as 15 years in prison, she was sentenced to 10 years' probation and psychological monitoring. Her family was ordered to pay €105,000 in damages to Mugnier's parents and twin brother, Benjamin. Her lawyers have 10 days to appeal the ruling.
Ever since she was placed in detention after the events of 11 November 2007, Davies had insisted she had experienced a blackout that had left her unable to explain why she had plunged a knife 12cm deep into her lover's chest. She was said to be high on drink and drugs.
The prosecution argued Davies was benefiting from a convenient selective memory. "She calculates. She erases from her memory incriminating evidence in a way that has escaped no one in this court," said Quemener.
However, her lawyers, who had recommended a sentence of 10 years in prison, rejected any idea that she was faking her amnesia as "totally erroneous". In a plea which compared her fragile mental state to the "atrocious anguish" evoked by the poet Charles Baudelaire, Daniel Soulez-Larivière said the murder should be interpreted as a manifestation of the violence the young woman had previously turned against herself in two previous suicide attempts.
"This is not a crime of a thief or a pervert, or a sexual crime, but a suicidal act," he said.
Davies had a turbulent family background in which her father was largely absent, having moved to Italy to be with his mistress, he added. "There is a certain English tendency to say 'touch nothing, say nothing'. Everything is smooth on the surface but underneath a lot is going on and … it can lead to tragedy," he said.
Psychiatrists who examined Davies concluded that she suffered from a borderline personality disorder which could have led her to suffer an "alteration of personality" at the time of the killing. Although harsher than expected, the sentence of 15 years was still less than the maximum of 30 years allowed under French law for voluntary but unpremeditated murder.
She said yesterday she would "never touch another drop" of alcohol and would continue with her medical treatment. "I can assure you that it will never happen again," she said.
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
French serial killers sentenced to life, life without parole
From The Independant, UK
Michel Fourniret, the so-called "Ogre of the Ardennes", was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison yesterday after being convicted of a reign of terror on both sides of the French-Belgian border. At the end of a harrowing, and sometimes grotesque, two-month trial, his wife, Monique Olivier, was convicted of being his accomplice and ordered to spend a minimum of 28 years in jail.
Fourniret, 66, was found guilty of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering seven girls and young women, aged from 12 to 24, between 1987 and 2001. Olivier was convicted of being complicit in one murder and helping him to entrap four girls by posing as a mother in distress. Both received life sentences but in Fourniret's case it was ordered to be "incompressible" or "served in full": the highest possible sentence in the French penal code.
The trial, at Charleville-Mézières, was dominated to the end by Fourniret's pseudo-intellectual mind-games with the court and the families of his victims. His final statement consisted of a series of garbled jokes about his wife and the prosecution and defence lawyers, written in rhyming couplets which failed to rhyme properly.
Both Fourniret and Olivier refused to talk at length about their crimes. Neither showed much remorse, although Olivier said she "regretted" what had happened. As a result, the trial failed to dissolve many of the mysteries surrounding Fourniret's reign of terror, including a 10-year spell between 1991 and 2001 when he was apparently inactive.
A second trial is expected next year, in which Fourniret and Olivier will be accused of at least two other murders, including that of the English student, Joanna Parrish in 1990.
Experts who gave evidence said they believed there may have been many other victims of a murderous, "eternal" pact between Fourniret and Olivier.
Letters read to the court revealed a grotesque deal between the couple when he left prison in 1987 after serving a sentence for rape. He agreed to murder her first husband if she helped him to "hunt virgins". The first part of the pact was never carried out.
Fourniret, an inoffensive-looking man with glasses and a wispy beard, had ordered his defence lawyers to say nothing on his behalf. He refused to answer questions and often mocked the court.
The final exchanges between prosecution and defence turned largely on whether Fourniret should be called a "monster". The chief prosecutor, Francis Nachbar, insisted that the word was justified. The principal defence lawyer, appointed against Fourniret's wishes, Maître Pierre Blocquaux, said he was "part of the same humanity as the rest of us, alas, whatever the horrible nature of the crimes".
M. Blocquaux also raised in his final statement one of the other great scandals of the case. How could so many girls and young women have been murdered without the French and Belgian police even suspecting a serial killer was at work? And how did Fourniret, a man with several convictions, evade police attention for so long?
M. Blocquaux said both countries were guilty of a "tragic catalogue of missed opportunities, negligence and blunders".
He told the court that Fourniret had indicated that he would not exercise his right to appeal. That was his single act of consideration towards his victims' families during the trial.
Fourniret's known victims
11 December 1987: Isabelle Laville
The 17-year-old schoolgirl agreed to help a woman who was "lost" in her car near Auxerre in Burgundy. Minutes later, the woman, Monique Olivier, stopped for a man with a jerry-can – Michel Fourniret. Isabelle was raped and murdered and her body never found. The killing set the pattern for at least seven similar rapes and murders in the next 14 years.
3 August 1988: Fabienne Leroy, 20, in the Marne.
18 March 1989: Jeanne-Marie Desramault, 21, at Charleville in the French Ardennes.
20 December 1989: Elisabeth Brichet, 12, kidnapped in Belgium and murdered in France.
21 November 1990: Natacha Danais, 13, at Rezé, near Nantes.
5 May 2001 Manyana Thumpong, 13, at Sedan, the French Ardennes.
16 May 2001 Céline Saison, 18, Charleville.
26 June 2003: Fourniret is arrested after a kidnapped 13-year-old girl jumps from his moving van near Namur in Belgium.
Michel Fourniret, the so-called "Ogre of the Ardennes", was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison yesterday after being convicted of a reign of terror on both sides of the French-Belgian border. At the end of a harrowing, and sometimes grotesque, two-month trial, his wife, Monique Olivier, was convicted of being his accomplice and ordered to spend a minimum of 28 years in jail.
Fourniret, 66, was found guilty of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering seven girls and young women, aged from 12 to 24, between 1987 and 2001. Olivier was convicted of being complicit in one murder and helping him to entrap four girls by posing as a mother in distress. Both received life sentences but in Fourniret's case it was ordered to be "incompressible" or "served in full": the highest possible sentence in the French penal code.
The trial, at Charleville-Mézières, was dominated to the end by Fourniret's pseudo-intellectual mind-games with the court and the families of his victims. His final statement consisted of a series of garbled jokes about his wife and the prosecution and defence lawyers, written in rhyming couplets which failed to rhyme properly.
Both Fourniret and Olivier refused to talk at length about their crimes. Neither showed much remorse, although Olivier said she "regretted" what had happened. As a result, the trial failed to dissolve many of the mysteries surrounding Fourniret's reign of terror, including a 10-year spell between 1991 and 2001 when he was apparently inactive.
A second trial is expected next year, in which Fourniret and Olivier will be accused of at least two other murders, including that of the English student, Joanna Parrish in 1990.
Experts who gave evidence said they believed there may have been many other victims of a murderous, "eternal" pact between Fourniret and Olivier.
Letters read to the court revealed a grotesque deal between the couple when he left prison in 1987 after serving a sentence for rape. He agreed to murder her first husband if she helped him to "hunt virgins". The first part of the pact was never carried out.
Fourniret, an inoffensive-looking man with glasses and a wispy beard, had ordered his defence lawyers to say nothing on his behalf. He refused to answer questions and often mocked the court.
The final exchanges between prosecution and defence turned largely on whether Fourniret should be called a "monster". The chief prosecutor, Francis Nachbar, insisted that the word was justified. The principal defence lawyer, appointed against Fourniret's wishes, Maître Pierre Blocquaux, said he was "part of the same humanity as the rest of us, alas, whatever the horrible nature of the crimes".
M. Blocquaux also raised in his final statement one of the other great scandals of the case. How could so many girls and young women have been murdered without the French and Belgian police even suspecting a serial killer was at work? And how did Fourniret, a man with several convictions, evade police attention for so long?
M. Blocquaux said both countries were guilty of a "tragic catalogue of missed opportunities, negligence and blunders".
He told the court that Fourniret had indicated that he would not exercise his right to appeal. That was his single act of consideration towards his victims' families during the trial.
Fourniret's known victims
11 December 1987: Isabelle Laville
The 17-year-old schoolgirl agreed to help a woman who was "lost" in her car near Auxerre in Burgundy. Minutes later, the woman, Monique Olivier, stopped for a man with a jerry-can – Michel Fourniret. Isabelle was raped and murdered and her body never found. The killing set the pattern for at least seven similar rapes and murders in the next 14 years.
3 August 1988: Fabienne Leroy, 20, in the Marne.
18 March 1989: Jeanne-Marie Desramault, 21, at Charleville in the French Ardennes.
20 December 1989: Elisabeth Brichet, 12, kidnapped in Belgium and murdered in France.
21 November 1990: Natacha Danais, 13, at Rezé, near Nantes.
5 May 2001 Manyana Thumpong, 13, at Sedan, the French Ardennes.
16 May 2001 Céline Saison, 18, Charleville.
26 June 2003: Fourniret is arrested after a kidnapped 13-year-old girl jumps from his moving van near Namur in Belgium.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Ooh la la! "Sexually predatory" French women more assertive in bed than in 1970
The tag line "Sexual Predator" drew me to this article, but alas, I was fooled;) This is only a article about the changing French sexual landscape since 1970.
Are women just like men?" asked Le Nouvel Observateur yesterday, which released extracts of the Study on Sexuality in France, a 600-page tome that brings together 12,000 in-depth interviews with people of all ages conducted during 2005-06.
One of the biggest changes in recent years, according to the report, was that male and female sexual behaviour had become increasingly similar.
The proportion of monogamous French women dropped from 68% in 1970 to 34% in 2006, with the average number of sexual partners for women rising from 2 in 1970 to 5 in 2006.
French women's first experience of sex is now almost as early as that of the opposite sex: in 1950 there was a two-year difference, but the gap has narrowed to four months, to around 17 and a half. Meanwhile, more women remain sexually active for longer than previously: nine-out-of-10 women over 50 are sexually active today, compared to just 50 per cent of that age group in 1970.
"The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior's return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble", said Le Nouvel Observateur.
Female sexual emancipation has been a hot topic in France ever since President Nicolas Sarkozy met Carla Bruni, the Italian model and singer. The couple married last month.
Ms Bruni recently declared monogamy "terribly boring" and spoke in relaxed fashion about her numerous past conquests, including Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton.
"I am a tamer [of men], a cat, an Italian", she told Le Figaro last year.
"I am faithful... to myself. I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry [its female equivalent]."
At the same time, she reinforced old stereotypes that link status and virility, by reportedly declaring: "I want a man with nuclear power."
Despite the changes in female behaviour observed in the study, some things have not altered in 40 years. Men found it easier than women to disassociate sex from love, but the research suggested this was due to nurture rather than nature. The study said: "Young women are still educated to consider their entrance into sexuality as a sentimental-relationship experience."
The abstinence rate for men under 35 is twice as high as for women, and for men under 24, is 20%. The researchers also state that French people are more comfortable with sexual expression, rather than lovemaking.
Are women just like men?" asked Le Nouvel Observateur yesterday, which released extracts of the Study on Sexuality in France, a 600-page tome that brings together 12,000 in-depth interviews with people of all ages conducted during 2005-06.
One of the biggest changes in recent years, according to the report, was that male and female sexual behaviour had become increasingly similar.
The proportion of monogamous French women dropped from 68% in 1970 to 34% in 2006, with the average number of sexual partners for women rising from 2 in 1970 to 5 in 2006.
French women's first experience of sex is now almost as early as that of the opposite sex: in 1950 there was a two-year difference, but the gap has narrowed to four months, to around 17 and a half. Meanwhile, more women remain sexually active for longer than previously: nine-out-of-10 women over 50 are sexually active today, compared to just 50 per cent of that age group in 1970.
"The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior's return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble", said Le Nouvel Observateur.
Female sexual emancipation has been a hot topic in France ever since President Nicolas Sarkozy met Carla Bruni, the Italian model and singer. The couple married last month.
Ms Bruni recently declared monogamy "terribly boring" and spoke in relaxed fashion about her numerous past conquests, including Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton.
"I am a tamer [of men], a cat, an Italian", she told Le Figaro last year.
"I am faithful... to myself. I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry [its female equivalent]."
At the same time, she reinforced old stereotypes that link status and virility, by reportedly declaring: "I want a man with nuclear power."
Despite the changes in female behaviour observed in the study, some things have not altered in 40 years. Men found it easier than women to disassociate sex from love, but the research suggested this was due to nurture rather than nature. The study said: "Young women are still educated to consider their entrance into sexuality as a sentimental-relationship experience."
The abstinence rate for men under 35 is twice as high as for women, and for men under 24, is 20%. The researchers also state that French people are more comfortable with sexual expression, rather than lovemaking.
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