• On July 5, 2020, a Bayonne bus driver was violently attacked by two young people, before dying in hospital.

  • The Bayonne prosecutor's office has just requested the dismissal of these two alleged attackers for intentional homicide.

  • The defense pleads for its part for a reclassification of the facts as “intentional blows having caused death without intention to give it”.

During the summer of 2020, after five days in a coma, Philippe Monguillot, a 59-year-old bus driver from Bayonne, married and father of three daughters, died in hospital.

On July 5, he was violently attacked by two passengers following a ticket check that went wrong.

His death had aroused a wave of emotion in Bayonne, and everywhere in France.

After a little less than two years of investigation, the Bayonne prosecutor's office has just requested the referral to the assizes for aggravated voluntary homicide of two 24-year-olds suspected of having fatally struck the bus driver.

In a final indictment delivered at the end of April, the services of the public prosecutor therefore retained the qualification of intentional homicide committed in a meeting and on a person charged with a public mission.

It was inside the bus, during a stop, that the altercation had started.

The driver had headbutted one of the attackers, before being beaten up outside.

A punch had knocked him to the ground, causing a fractured skull and hemorrhaging.

The defense for a requalification

The lawyers for the two alleged assailants tried to undermine the thesis of a surge of violence, aiming to reclassify the facts as "intentional blows resulting in death without intention to give it", punishable by fifteen years' criminal imprisonment and not of perpetuity.

The two other men who were there at the time of the events had been placed under examination for "failure to assist a person in danger".

One of them could be judged for this qualification and for having accommodated the two young people, imprisoned since their arrest.

A dismissal was requested for the fourth man.

It is now up to the investigating judge in charge of the case to issue an indictment order before an assize court for these charges, or to reclassify them.

Justice

Bus driver killed in Bayonne: Five hours of reconstruction, one year after the death of Philippe Monguillot

Company

Bus driver killed in Bayonne: The course of events disputed by the defense

  • Justice

  • Bayonne

  • Driver

  • Bus

  • Assault

  • Homicide

  • Company

  • Aquitaine

  • Pays Basque