Creteil (AFP)
The athlete Benjamin Compaoré was sentenced Friday to six months in prison suspended by the criminal court of Créteil for domestic violence.
The 33-year-old triple jump champion was prosecuted for "usual violence resulting in total incapacity for work of less than eight days" committed against his wife between August 2019 and March 2020.
The court finally reclassified the facts as "violence" - and not "usual violence" - and accepted the defense's request not to enter this conviction in bulletin number 2 of his criminal record.
During the hearing, the 2014 European triple jump champion and medalist at the world indoor championships in 2016 spoke of the “communication difficulties” experienced by his couple in 2019.
"It brought us to scenes which degenerated", he underlined at the bar, evoking "violence committed on both sides", caused for some by the "anxiety attacks" of his companion with whom he had two children.
"Both her and me, we have our faults, we acted badly, I too could have lodged a complaint for violence but I do not clear myself of anything and I assume my responsibilities", he declared.
"These scenes of violence, we both regret them," added his companion, Barbara, who did not take action and who has recently been living together with her companion.
"It happened to me to strike the first blow, our lack of communication has a lot to do with it. I had filed a complaint to stop the process in which we were both locked."
The court followed the requisitions of the prosecution which had deemed "reassuring for the future" the positions of Benjamin Compaoré, who intends to end his athletic career after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
"He verbalizes the fact that his answer was inadequate, things seem to have calmed down" between them, underlined the prosecutor.
"The educational virtues of this procedure have borne fruit: you have in front of you a man who is aware of what has happened and who will no longer reproduce this violence."
© 2020 AFP