The case of the late Yanis Courbot, who was the boy who died at age 5 back in 2017 during punishment for having wet the bed, resumed on Monday, as his step-father denies any criminal intent before the Court of Assizes in the North of Douai, AFP reports.
According to the report, Yanis’ stepfather at the resumed hearing, again denied any criminal intent on Monday, at the opening of his appeal trial for murder in Douai.
“I find it completely normal to claim life imprisonment if one is guilty of murder”, but in this case, “this is not the case at all”, launched the accused Monday morning after the presentation of the facts.
“From what I understand, it should be manslaughter, non-assistance to a person in danger,” he said. “I hope you have lots of questions,” he added defiantly.
He did, however, acknowledge common abuse, such as “spanking” or “slapping”, against Yanis Courbot and appeared very tense as he read the report, nervously flailing his legs and holding back tears.
Sentenced in November 2020 to 25 years in prison for murder and regular violence against the son (Yanis) of his partner, Julien Masson, 35, is on appeal until Friday.
The mother, Emilie Inglard, had been sentenced to four years in prison, two of which were suspended for failure to prevent a crime. She did not appeal.
On the night of February 5 to 6, 2017, Yanis Courbot was found lying on a jacket, in soaked underwear and covered with around thirty bruises, near the unsanitary cabin in Aire-sur-La-Lys where his mother and his beau -father used to spend the weekend.
During the first interrogations, Julien Masson explains that the child fell inanimate after running along a canal in a temperature of 5 degrees, a punishment he inflicted on him for having wet the bed.
A changed version of the story
He will change the version later, claiming to have gone out that evening to “look for tobacco” in the company of the child.
According to the investigation, they left the shed between 12:00 a.m. and 12:30 a.m., Julien Masson following Yanis on a bicycle for several kilometers. The child was immersed in the canal and received several violent blows, including one to the skull, causing death according to the autopsy.
At first instance, Julien Masson tried to explain Yanis’s injuries by successive “falls”, before admitting “a few blows”, including “a dry” on the skull using a flashlight. After several days of hearing, he ended up recognizing his “responsibility” in the death, ensuring however that he “never wanted” to kill.
(AFP)