He kills a puppy with an axe in front of his children

Athena was barely three months old and lived in Grignon in a stepfamily with five children. Wednesday, April 11^threturning home from work, the mother accidentally drove over the paw of this adorable little Beauceron dog. To avoid having to pay for the vet care, the stepfather asks the vet to put it down, his wife intervened, the children were terrified. The veterinarian does not perform the euthanasia, but does not offer to help and didn’t warn the authorities either, while the puppy was clearly in danger of death and the children were afraid. This is the first step towards the nightmare. 

An outburst of rage without limit on a baby dog

When the veterinarian refuses, the man decides to kill the poor wounded animal himself. Horror of horrors, he chooses the axe as a weapon of the crime, and proceeds to kill him under the horrified gaze of one of the children who will call the gendarmes himself while the rest of the family is in a state of shock. He will burn Athena's body in the woods to better hide his wrongdoing. He will also be seen by a witness through the trees digging a pit in which he would throw the remains of the murdered puppy. Thanks to them this extreme act of violence has been discovered and will not go unpunished. 

The link between domestic violence and violence towards pets

This chilling affair is exemplary in the link it denotes between the violence suffered by the children and their mother and those perpetrated towards the puppy. For ten years this particularly violent man had been in the habit of beating brutally and threatening his partner and children with death, as a witness close to the couple said: "He is capable of killing them all.The dog was the first sign of what could have happened to them". "It was just slaps of obedience!" the accused will say by way of explanation, without ever expressing the slightest regret, neither for Athena, nor for her abused family ...

What can be said of a child who has been beaten for eleven years and has a handicapped foot, forced to watch his beloved animal get hit again and again by an axe without any chance of escaping? Scape-goat for his stepfather he will later tell the authorities. "He hit me with the palm of his hand in the  face ... (...) At the same time he cries, he says words like that I should not have existed and that I am a good for nothing (...) it happens every week he hits me there are weeks where it's every day (...) he says I'm rotten and that I do not deserve anything (...) he tells me he will kill me". Between his personal condition and that of Athena, it is easy to understand what connection the little boy could have made. What will be the psychological consequences for him?

For the plaintiff, we demand an exemplary penalty

We filed a complaint immediately after the discovery of the facts. The torturer appeared April 18^th2018 at the Criminal Court Albertville for "serious abuse on pets" but also for "intrafamilial violence". The judgment was postponed until May 24^th pending the psychiatric assessment of the defendant. Our Cell Zoe will be there for Athena but also to highlight the heroic role of the child, who must be completely protected.

In addition to claiming exemplary punishment against this man, sign our petition to demand with us the creation of a criminal record of violence and acts of cruelty perpetrated towards animals. This is to better detect and punish those responsible for the facts, not in function of the type of species the victim is. It is untenable, how many more deaths, children under terror, lives broken?