Mountain Dreamers
Hammer-thrower Gwen Berry’s tweets about ‘retarded’ white people and rape resurface after protesting national anthem. And she is celebrated as a social justice warrior. Beware of these fraudulent people.
Brig Soren and Reidar… does she look like someone trustworthy ?, honest?
Brig, Soren and Reidar-
Beware, the FBI, Police, Social Worker are not honest. The events of Jan 6, 2021 is eerily like the Reichstag fire. A hoax for certain politicians to take power.
What’s interesting about the revelations from this week is not that the FBI is up to some new, clever gambit to combat the wily insurrectionists in our midst.
This week included interesting revelations about the FBI’s case against the handful of people charged with plotting to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Of 14 people indicted, five (or more) were working as informants for the FBI.
As Revolver has noted, the five people who seem to be the FBI informants were also the people who seemed to have all the kidnapping ideas and access to all the equipment needed for a paramilitary assault on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s vacation home. At one point, the leadership of the conspiracy met, and three of the five people in that discussion were FBI.
I worked in counterterrorism for more than 10 years, so I understand all the reasons a federal agent would argue this isn’t technically entrapment. The people didn’t know they were surrounded by fedsx and continued to take overt actions that advanced the fantasy conspiracy, and that’s illegal. Okay, fine.
But this got me thinking about some of the old ISIS and al-Qaeda cases I reviewed when I was helping prosecute terrorists who actually killed people. I remember giving my buddies in the FBI a hard time when they would “win” a domestic terror case and all they had was a kook who had been running his mouth on the internet.
“Your case is weak,” I would tell them, “And why are you wearing a suit? We’re going to be reading in the SCIF again today. It’s the same things we’ve been doing all year.”
At the risk of sounding like Tom Nichols some old man sitting on a porch going on about how hard things were in my day, I’m going to say this: There was a time the FBI caught and prosecuted really dangerous people.
Remember Ramzi Yousef, the guy who bombed the World Trade Center? Now, that’s a real terrorist. He could build bombs and teach others to build them. He would work independently in foreign countries for months on end. He could quietly travel and move money around the world without anyone noticing.
When the FBI secured his conviction, he was airlifted out of the courthouse in lower Manhattan. The agents who caught him were in the helicopter with him. They could easily see the World Trade Center, and one of the agents said to Yousef, “You failed. They’re still standing.”
“I just needed a little more money,” Yousef said.
That’s a real terrorist.
Terrorism, as it turns out, is hard. Recruiting isn’t easy, and finding the right people is difficult. A person who is willing to train, travel, keep secrets, and face a very high chance of dying is not statically all that common.
Getting access to explosives, and knowing how to use them, is technically complicated. You can practice, but if you make a mistake, you’ll blow yourself up. Oh, there’s bomb-making manuals on the internet? Sure, there are. Feel free to try those out. I dare you.
Shooting isn’t all that easy either, and training someone to gun fight—really, seriously gun fight—takes expertise, and time, and a place where you can shoot for hundreds of hours without anyone noticing. Do you know where you could do something like that? Who would teach you how to shoot like that, or fight with knives, or drive a car so you could get away? How would you find that person? How would you vet him to make sure he’s not FBI?
You wouldn’t. Unless you’re a mercenary, you’ve trained with a militia in Africa or Asia, or you’re a SWAT officer or an elite soldier, you wouldn’t know those things, and you wouldn’t know people who know those things. Frankly, most of the people who know those things are dedicated patriots. They’re the good people, and the bad guys won’t share that information easily. They’re secretive and expensive.
So the FBI does the heavy lifting in these cases. The suspects start out by talking about jihad or revolution or overthrowing the government, and someone in their chat group decides he should tell the FBI.
The people the FBI sends in to look at the chats or communicate with the suspects aren’t just a fly on the wall. They offer to help. They offer bombs. They offer direction. They suggest targets.
They tell the suspects they need money for the cause. They ask them when they can fly to Syria or Iraq or wherever.
The Intercept did some marvelous reporting on this in 2017. They noted, quite correctly, that in hundreds and hundreds of cases the FBI and Department of Justice had brought to trial there were no victims of violence, and the FBI informants were the primary driving characters in the fictional worlds the suspects had been caught up in.
In case after case, it’s the FBI that creates the illusion of the ability to do harm. There are no bombs, no ability to launch an attack. There is no group ready to meet and support them, no weapons smugglers, or expert marksmen. There is only the anger of a lonely person screaming into the void of the internet, and the only one who answers that screaming is the FBI.
So what’s interesting about the revelations from this week is not that the FBI is up to some new, clever gambit to combat the wily insurrectionists in our midst. What is interesting is they are right back to pulling the same tricks they used on wannabe al-Qaeda and ISIS dopes for the last 15 years.
Why is the assistant director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office—Anthony D’Antuono, who is heading the investigation into the January 6 riot at the capitol and was previously in charge of the Detroit Field Office—doing these things? He’s never known another way. He had been an FBI agent only three years on 9/11, and all that time he was a forensic accountant. This is how the FBI has run these kinds of investigations his entire career.
The problem is not that we’re going to find out that the January 6 case is going to be full of FBI agents and informants, just like the Whitmer kidnapping case. The problem is we are starting to understand this is standard procedure for counterterrorism. This is a 20-year-old charade the FBI brass has been pulling.
The FBI didn’t let the crisis of 9/11 go to waste—they seized on it to dramatically increase their funding and power. They suddenly took the “lead” on terrorism all over the United States. Before 9/11, they had treated terrorism as an ugly footnote. The people on the USS Cole bombing case remember working out of basement offices, part-time, as al-Qaeda grew more powerful, better funded, and trained hundreds of people in Afghanistan.
Once the FBI was in charge, there were lots of new GS-15 positions, offices to fill, and money to spend—and boy, did they. In 2001, the FBI wanted $1.5 billion for counterterrorism and only got $500 million. In 2002, they asked for $200 million more. In 2003, they asked for $285 more. And so on. The total FBI budget was about $3.5 billion in 2002. It’s more than $10 billion today.
Now, 20 years later, with Osama bin Laden dead and the United States leaving Afghanistan, do we think those GS-15 positions, or those Joint Terrorism Task Forces, or the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, are going to go away? No. They need work to justify those budgets, and America needs a new enemy.
The difference is that the government has begun to use the tools that were developed to fight a credible foreign threat now to fight against the political opponents of Democrats.Matthew Braun is the founder of Panoply Consulting.
Brig, Soren and Reidar. Your Papa is not alone in exposing the injustice you suffer from. Listen to Greg’s story, and the plight of his two boys, similar ages to you.
Brig, Soren and Reidar- Reality vs. Narrative.
Phil is active on twitter defending men and boys against abuse. He wrote his story here. It is candid view of abuse.
Content Warning: Please be aware that this article contains descriptions that relate to sexual abuse that some readers may find upsetting.
Before the age of 21, I experienced various forms physical and emotional abuse, including violence, child sexual exploitation, and rape.
PHIL MITCHEL
During my adolescent years I had, to put it mildly, a very difficult time. I was violently bullied in school, I attempted to take my own life on two occasions, and I ended up being separated from the other students by being sent to work in a room on my own.
I eventually joined a youth group for young LGBT+ people. At first I thought this was pretty amazing, however, after the group meeting was over, many of us would go to a local, trendy gay bar. We thought we were pretty grown up, and no one told us that being under 16 and frequenting these venues was a problem. I now look back and realise that the lack of boundaries was a contributing factor in what happened to me.
In the bar I would see other boys, all aged under 18, being chatted up by men in their 50s. This seemed to be “the norm”. One of the boys, who I shall refer to as Tom, was quite open about the fact that he was being paid by older men to have sex with them. I remember changing my mind from seeing Tom as a “dirty prostitute”, to a genius who was killing two birds with one stone by getting loads of sex and loads of money. A few months later, I found out that Tom had been paid for sex by a man who abused him, and later murdered him.
A child who feels unloved will endure large amounts of abuse for a small amount of love
I eventually met an older man – I’ll call him Mike – in the bar. He was an attractive man, and in his late 20s or early 30s.
He presented himself as a confident, successful charmer, and I fancied him straight away. At this point – I was 16 – I’d left home after experiencing violence, and was living in a bedsit. I’d given up going to college, and was working full-time in retail to pay my rent.
When I met Mike, I told him about the violence I’d experienced at home and school, and he instantly empathised. Not only did he understand my situation, he flirted with me and made me feel attractive and good about myself. This was one of the few times in my life that someone helped to put a smile on my face.
Mike started coming round to my bedsit, buying me presents, paying me compliments and making me feel loved and accepted. We’d play games on my PlayStation and cuddle up watching TV together.
PHIL AS A TEENAGER
But it wasn’t long before Mike started turning up with other men; men who I had never met before. He would text me saying he was outside my front door and that he had a surprise for me. I responded with surprise and uncertainty when I answered the door and saw him standing there with an unknown male in his 40s. He introduced the man and said that he liked playing the same PlayStation games as me. I thought it was a bit weird and, to be honest, a bit rude, but I didn’t want to rock the boat. I thought that I’d done well to end up with such a handsome and successful boyfriend, so why would I do anything to ruin that?
Mike brought four men round on four separate occasions, and he pressured me into giving all of them oral sex. At the time, I remember it feeling very weird, but Mike was an amazing manipulator. He told me that it was normal to have lots of sex and that it was just a bit of fun. He told me how I should be grateful because: a) he was my boyfriend allowing me to have sex with other men; and b) these men were interested in me and no one else.
Mike would occasionally get aggressive, but never violent. None of the men were ever violent. I remember my heart beating fast and feeling all the blood rush from my stomach to my limbs as I was performing oral sex, or as I now see it, being abused. Mike told me that those feelings were normal. I didn’t recognise what was happening to me as abuse. I wasn’t being hurt or violently forced into performing sex. Yes, I was being pressured, but I didn’t think that was abuse. I remembered what happened to Tom, but Mike told me that I had him to look after me and that Tom had no one. He also said that Tom was being paid for sex and that I wasn’t, so it was a completely different situation.
I didn’t want to have sex with any of these men, but I went along with it to keep Mike happy. People ask: “Why did you put up with it?” The answer is simple. I was a child and he was an adult. At the time, I didn’t think Mike was treating me badly. He was giving me everything I’d ever wanted and that I’d never had before – love, acceptance, happiness, support, understanding. The problem was that I didn’t get any of that without emotional blackmail, mind games and pressure that resulted in sexual abuse. A child who feels unloved will endure large amounts of abuse for a small amount of love. I didn’t really know what abuse was, and I didn’t know that Mike’s fake displays of affection weren’t real love.
PHIL
I didn’t tell anyone what was going on at the time. Part of me knew it was “weird”, but I wasn’t really sure what I would say. The last man Mike brought round was a bit rougher than the others, and when I said stop, he laughed and said: “Oh he wants me to stop.” That’s when I knew I had to get out of the situation.
I acted differently with Mike – becoming more distant with him. I cut off communications; I stopped texting him, and didn’t respond to his calls or messages. I suspect he knew that I was angry and upset because he stopped trying to get in touch. A few months later, when I was feeling lonely, I tried to contact him but he had changed his number.
Fast forward to a few months before my 21st birthday, and I was on a night out. A drunken me ended up wandering off and meeting a man who I believed was a bouncer. He said he would help me into a taxi, but he ended up taking me to a bridge and forcing me to give him oral sex. I’m often asked, why did I tell the police (who responded by blaming me) about the bouncer, but not about what happened with Mike? I saw both incidents as completely separate with nothing in common. It was only during my counselling training that I realised I had been abused by Mike and the bouncer, just in different ways.
I find that perceptions around masculinity, gender stereotypes, and people’s ideas on what it means to be male, often feature in therapy sessions
After a lifetime of abuse – from being bullied in school, to beaten up at home – I tried to take my own life. I then sought counselling. It was only after I was raped that I started to think about my abuse at the hands of Mike. I had seen them both as completely different situations, but I realised they were both sexually abusive with lots of power and control. Once I realised that the situations had a lot more in common, I started to accept that I was abused as a child.
I now work as a counsellor/psychotherapist, with a specific focus on boys and men affected by recent or historic rape, abuse and sexual exploitation. I find that perceptions around masculinity, gender stereotypes, and people’s ideas on what it means to be male, often feature in therapy sessions. My job is to explore this with the client, identify how it may be acting as a barrier to positive change, and help the client develop a healthier perception of masculinity.
Working with boys and men, and their ideas about what it means to be male, can present an added challenge. I didn’t tell anyone what happened to me as a child, even when I realised it was abuse, because of the bad experience I’d had of disclosing rape to the police, and I partly believed men should just “man up”.
PHIL AT WORK
It’s important to not blame victims for the abuse they’ve suffered. We need to understand the situation from their point of view, not our’s.
The first time I shared my story, I felt very nervous, as people I’d worked with for years had no idea what had happened to me, but it also felt incredibly empowering. Moving forward, I will continue to raise awareness of, and tackle, the sexual abuse and exploitation of boys and men.
I have recently started talking about my experiences publicly, have contributed to various publications, and featured in a number of documentaries – most recently BBC’s documentary Male Rape: Breaking the Silence. I also deliver training across the country, addressing male abuse, and supervise therapists working with abused children and adults.
Everyone’s experience is so unique, but I would encourage all boys and men to talk more. A lot of males think they have to “man up”, but I have a saying: man up means shut up; shut up means bottle up; bottle up means put up (or put ’em up); and then eventually you f*ck up. Don’t man up – speak up.
You can find out more about Phil and his practice at counsellingwithphil.co.uk. Phil will be sharing his story throughout April across locations in Yorkshire – find out where he’s speaking at counsellorinleeds.co.uk
Fe Robinson MUKCP (reg) MBACP (reg) psychotherapist and clinical supervisor, says:
As Phil makes clear, a person who is abused is never to blame. Abusers are manipulative and invalidating, enabling their abuse to continue. Phil’s account shows the importance of trusting our own instinct; if something feels wrong, pay attention to that feeling. I hope that others can be empowered by what Phil has shared, and find ways to speak their truth and find freedom from the power of abuse, both past and present.
Listen to Huberman talk about the brain and neural pathways of fear and courage.
We use this in almost every moment of our life, from taking test, asking out a girl, to skiing a steep slope. constantly. It is really cool to understand this- and conquer your fears. tame them.
Rene has brilliant theory about the origin of violence. He perfectly explains why people act malevolently. It is NOT any of the sources that they tell in society, like video games or guns.
It is a fragile mental state, that cares about their “status” in relation to others. Girard gives this talk in Ecole Superior in Paris.
Brig, Soren and Reidar- please listen. This is information that can save your life.
Marlene is detached from reality, and that makes her a dangerous person. She thinks all men are violent, regardless of fact truth or reality.
Brig, Soren and Reidar- when you are a father and husband, your life will be at the emotional whimsy of Marlene.
INTERVIEW – Dans le cadre du forum Génération Egalité, Marlène Schiappa, ministre déléguée à la Citoyenneté, annonce avec l’ONU Femmes, le lancement d’un réseau mondial des forces de sécurité intérieure mobilisées contre les violences conjugales.
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Depuis mercredi 30 juin et jusqu’au vendredi 2 juillet, plusieurs milliers de délégués représentants des Etats et des ONG se retrouvent à Paris, pour le Forum Génération Egalité. Il s’agit de la plus importante convention de l’ONU sur ce sujet depuis la Conférence de Pékin, en 1995. A cette occasion, la ministre déléguée à la Citoyenneté, Marlène Schiappa, annonce la création avec ONU Femmes d’un réseau mondial des forces de sécurité intérieure. L’objectif? Lutter contre les violences conjugales et protéger les femmes.
En quoi va consister ce réseau mondial des forces de sécurité intérieure?
Nous créons avec Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, directrice exécutive d’ONU femmes, à l’occasion du Forum Génération Egalité, une coalition d’actions concrète pour mieux lutter contre les violences conjugales à travers le monde. C’est une initiative inédite que nous prenons face à ce fléau structurel qui concerne tous les pays du monde, pas un n’a réussi à éradiquer les violences conjugales. Selon l’ONU, il y a 87.000 femmes tuées par leur conjoint ou leur ex-conjoint dans le monde, par an. C’est un fléau mondial. Une femme sur trois dans le monde a déjà subi au moins une fois les violences de son partenaire ou ex-partenaire selon l’ONU.
Nous avons décidé de créer ce réseau mondial des forces de l’ordre pour échanger des bonnes pratiques afin de faire reculer ces violences. La police et la gendarmerie sont notre instrument le plus important contre les violences dont les femmes sont victimes : 400.000 interventions pour protéger des femmes et des enfants des violences rien que l’an dernier. Pour progresser, il faut que l’on puisse rendre partout dans le monde la police sensible à cette question, comme elle l’est de plus en plus en France. L’idée, c’est que les femmes puissent déposer plainte systématiquement face à des violences conjugales, que la gravité des actes ne soit plus sous évaluée ou relativisée. Les formulaires et les questions posées pendant les plaintes doivent être appropriés. Les victimes doivent bénéficier d’un accompagnement adapté dans les commissariats partout dans le monde. Pour cela, il faut que les policiers soient formés et que les forces de l’ordre soient féminisées. Plus il y aura de femmes au sein des forces de l’ordre, mieux les violences conjugales seront prises en compte.
Quand ce réseau mondial sera-t-il mis en place et quels sont les pays qui ont rejoint cette coalition?
Cela fait plusieurs mois qu’on y travaille. Ce vendredi 2 juillet, c’est le lancement concret de cette coalition avec l’ONU femmes. Elle a vocation à regrouper des ministres de l’Intérieur mais aussi de la Justice à travers le monde, ainsi que des responsables de forces de l’ordre. La direction générale de la police et de la gendarmerie nationale, par exemple, sera représentée. On retrouve aussi sur ces questions le ministre de la Justice islandais, le ministre de l’Intérieur du Mexique. Une vingtaine de pays ont déjà fait part de leur volonté d’adhérer à cette coalition. Le principe, c’est que le pays qui rejoint ce réseau prend des engagements qui pourront être vérifiés par des activistes, par l’ONU et par la société civile pour créer une dynamique positive à l’échelle internationale. Tout cela avec un vademecum mondial de bonnes pratiques en matière de détection du risques, d’accueil et de prise en charge par les forces de l’ordre au niveau mondial.
Lire aussi – Violences conjugales : dans les Grand Est, des psys ambulants pour victimes isolées
Que contient ce manuel de bonnes pratiques?
Notre but est de travailler pour dépister les violences conjugales mais aussi sur la formation des forces l’ordre. On s’appuie sur le travail mené par ONU femmes pour recenser partout dans le monde les formations dispensées aux policiers sur ces questions. L’autre priorité est la féminisation des forces de l’ordre, y compris à un haut niveau de responsabilité, afin d’avoir une police mixte qui ressemble à la population. C’était le sens de la campagne lancée en mars ” vous êtes féministe, devenez policière ! “.
L’amélioration de la coopération et de la coordination entre la justice et la police est aussi abordée. Au-delà de la prise de plainte, il est primordial de transmettre ces plaintes à la justice pour que la justice puisse être rendue. Il y a une impunité des auteurs de violences conjugales au niveau mondial. Enfin, nous créons aussi une plate-forme d’expertise avec ce vademecum sur les bonnes pratiques à partager pour les forces de sécurité intérieure. Chaque pays avance dans son coin pour renforcer l’action de sa police, l’idée c’est qu’on puisse avoir enfin des retours très concrets à partager.
Certaines pratiques ont-elles inspiré la France pour la mise en place de futures mesures supplémentaires?
C’est vraiment un échange. Cette coalition se réunira au moins une fois par an pour vérifier que les engagements ont été tenus et pour accueillir des nouveaux membres. Ce que la France amène au pot commun, c’est ce qu’a fait la France suite aux Grenelles des violences conjugales. Nous avons déjà formé 88.000 policiers et gendarmes. Maintenant dans notre formation initiale, la formation devient obligatoire pour les policiers et les gendarmes. Nous avons aussi créé des postes d’intervenants sociaux en commissariats. C’est assez rare en Europe d’avoir des intervenants sociaux, des assistants sociaux, des psychologues dans les commissariats pour cette prise en charge. Nous sommes aussi l’un des seuls pays qui permet de saisir les armes des conjoints violents. Il y a beaucoup d’ONG féministes aux Etats-Unis qui souhaitent que l’on promeuve cela à l’étranger.
Des associations déplorent des moyens insuffisants en France pour lutter contre les violences faites aux femmes. Que leur répondez-vous?
C’est leur rôle. J’écoute ce que disent les associations. C’est pour cela que nous avons voulu qu’il y ait des associations et des représentants de la société civile dans ce réseau mondial afin de partager aussi ce qui ne va pas. L’idée est aussi d’identifier les points de dysfonctionnements comme d’amélioration et de lutter pour les implémenter. Il n’y a jamais assez d’argent pour protéger les femmes, on peut toujours en mettre plus. C’est aussi pourquoi Emmanuel Macron a fait appel à des fonds privés. Des entreprises mettent beaucoup d’argent sur la table au niveau mondial aussi, comme Kering ou l’Oréal que je remercie.
Lire aussi – “Les violences faites aux femmes ne sont pas une fatalité!” : 64 parlementaires exigent plus de moyens
Des forces de l’ordre supplémentaires vont-elles être déployées pour lutter contre les violences conjugales en France?
Le président de la République Emmanuel Macron s’est engagé à recruter 10.000 policiers et gendarmes sur l’ensemble du quinquennat. Environ 6.500 ont déjà été recrutés. Le reste le sera comme l’a souhaité le ministre de l’Intérieur. Ce qui est important pour nous, c’est que ces policiers et gendarmes soient bien formés. Depuis les Grenelles des violences conjugales, il y a eu une vraie révolution de la formation des forces de l’ordre puisque maintenant 100% de ceux qui sortent de l’école sont formés.
Cette formation pourrait-elle être encore améliorée avec la création de ce réseau?
Tout ce que nous faisons est issu du Grenelle des violences conjugales mais on peut encore faire mieux. Il y a encore des dysfonctionnements, il y a encore des choses à améliorer. Ce qui est intéressant avec ce réseau mondial, c’est de présenter ce que l’on fait mais aussi de dire aux autres pays “et vous qu’est-ce que vous faites? De quoi peut-on s’inspirer?”. En France, le gros point noir, c’est la coopération police-justice et l’information des victimes. Nous y travaillons avec Gérald Darmanin et Eric Dupond-Moretti. Nous avons aussi un travail à faire pour améliorer la connaissance des dispositifs comme les bracelets anti-rapprochement ou les téléphones grave danger. Récemment, il y a eu une prise de conscience sur les violences conjugales. Mais il faut encore accélérer et que cela devienne la norme.
D’autres outils pourraient-ils être mis en place?
Il a fallu attendre 2017 pour que la lutte contre les violences conjugales soit une priorité, le président de la République en a fait la grande cause de son quinquennat et nous avons organisé une mobilisation inédite, avec des mesures concrètes, avec le Grenelle des violences conjugales. Ces avancées sont importantes mais pas suffisantes tant qu’il y aura encore un féminicide, un féminicide de trop, une femme victime de violences conjugales, une victime de trop. On se doit de faire plus, la France prend toute sa place de leader. Avec cette coalition l’idée est d’échanger, repérer ce qui fonctionne ailleurs, et l’inclure en France y compris si ça doit bousculer certaines habitudes si c’est pour mieux protéger les femmes.
Brig, Soren and Reidar-
Let’s work to prevent this from happening to our family. You must be aware of the mental instability of your mother. She is willing to murder if she is “upset” with herself. She ticks all the same boxes as Rebecca.
In France, you can murder your husband- and be celebrated as a hero, she has almost 1 million signatures of support.
Brig, Soren and Reidar- Just repeat that statement above… I only have 50 letters people have written to support your release, and they have been intimidated by your mother. Just ask Shannon what your mother said to her for writing a letter on your behalf.
Our society is totally out of control. Not providing any responsibility when a woman commits evil acts.
A Frenchwoman who killed the man who raped her for years was on Friday handed a four-year jail term, but walked free as most of her sentence was suspended.
Valérie Bacot, who was just 12 when Daniel Polette raped her for the first time. He later became her husband and pimp.
Three years of her four-year term were suspended and the rest she has already served in pre-trial detention.
The case of Bacot, who wrote a book about her experiences published last month called “Everybody Knew”, has become a rallying cause for feminists in France at a time when more women are breaking their silence on sexual assault.
Bacot, 40, admitted to shooting Daniel Polette dead in 2016. Polette was her stepfather, who later married her and forced her into prostitution.
A jury in Chalon-sur-Saone, central France, found Bacot guilty of the murder. She was sentenced to one year in prison and a three-year suspended sentence.
Abuse starts aged 12
The prosecutor had earlier requested that Bacot should not be sent to prison, saying he didn’t consider her a danger to society.
The trial showed the degree of control and influence Polette – 25 years Bacot’s senior – had over her.
“Yes, I killed him but if I had not done it, my children would have,” Bacot said.
Polette arrived in Bacot’s life in 1992 as her mother’s companion. A few months later, she said, the sexual abuse started. She was 12 when he began raping her, Bacot said.
Polette’s sisters reached out to a social worker and he was arrested in 1995 and convicted of sexual assaults, spending two years in prison.
Polette then returned to the family home and started abusing Bacot again.
“When he came back, he said he would leave me alone. My mother had forgiven him. But it started again. Following a rape I got pregnant,” Bacot said. She was 17 at the time.
Her mother threw her out of the house and she started living with Polette, whom she described as having total control over her life.
He did not allow her to work or use contraception. She had three other children.
“He was beating me, slaps then punches, he throttled me. He was beating and then things were going better,” she said, adding he also threatened her with a handgun.
‘A monster’
In 2002, he forced her into prostitution, still controlling all of her actions.
In March 2016, following a violent prostitution-related situation, she shot Polette with the gun. Her children helped her bury the body, an act for which they were given suspended prison sentences.
Bacot was arrested by police the following year and imprisoned, before being released under judicial supervision in 2018 pending trial.
The psychologist who examined her said the protection of her children was key in Bacot’s reaction. In 2016, she feared Polette would assault her 14-year old daughter and force her into prostitution.
A petition in favor of Bacot has gathered over 710,000 signatures.
Family members came to the court to say they don’t regret Polette’s death. His brother and sisters described him as a “monster”.
“The person I thank the most in the world is Valérie, because she killed him. She did what I should have done for a long time,” said Polette’s sister, 59. She said he raped her when she was 12.
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Dr. Denis Prieur, a psychiatrist, said that at the time of the domestic abuse, Bacot no longer had free will. “She was not able to turn to the law (for assistance) because her husband was always there.”
Now, “she has become somebody” and is not “a thing” anymore, he said.
Bacot’s case echoes that of another French woman, Jacqueline Sauvage, who was convicted of shooting and killing her allegedly violent husband. Sauvage was granted a presidential pardon in 2016, allowing her to get out of prison.
Sauvage had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for fatally shooting her husband three times in the back with a hunting rifle in 2012. During the trial, she said her husband had beaten her for 47 years. The couple’s adult daughters also said he had abused them.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)