Investigators focused on Friday to retrace the last moments of a 59-year-old bus driver, victim of a fatal assault a year ago at a bus stop in Bayonne, during a reenactment that lasted more than five hours in the presence of the four suspects.

On July 5, 2020, shortly after 7:00 p.m., Philippe Monguillot was struck by two passengers after a ticket check that had gone wrong.

This drama had aroused a major wave of emotion in France.

The altercation had started inside the train and escalated after the bus driver head butted one of the attackers.

Outside the bus, he had been badly beaten, a final punch knocking him to the ground.

This fall had caused a fractured skull and bleeding.

He was brain dead and died five days later in hospital.

From 9:00 am, at the Balichon bus stop, the four protagonists reproduced their actions, including the two main perpetrators of the beatings, aged 22 and 23, prosecuted for “intentional homicide” and detained for a year.

The other two, prosecuted for failing to assist a person in danger, had been under judicial supervision since November but one of them has since been incarcerated again for another case of violence.

A tribute Saturday afternoon, a year after death

Me Alexandre Novion, lawyer for the widow and three daughters of Philippe Monguillot, welcomed a reconstruction "in the rules of the art", during which "the truth has progressed".

On the other hand, it was "a difficult exercise" for the defense of the young man accused of having struck the final blow, which he does not deny.

"He caused the fall of Mr. Monguillot then his death occurred a few days later", said his lawyer Me Thierry Sagardoytho.

The latter, however, wanted to speak of "willful violence resulting in death without intention of giving it" for his client: "We hope that the investigation will not go astray to hold a qualification of murder which obviously does not hold. .

“Saturday, one year to the day after the death of Philippe Monguillot, a tribute must be paid to him not far from Bayonne, with a release of white balloons at 5:10 pm, time of his death.

A minute of silence is scheduled at the same time at the Bayonne network bus depot.

Society

Hundreds of people pay a final tribute to Philippe Monguillot

Politics

Le Pen "sorry" to have relayed the photo of an alleged "murderer" of the Bayonne bus driver

  • Investigation

  • Bayonne

  • Justice

  • Aggression

  • Aquitaine

  • Bus