happened in 2016 when Daniel Polette increasingly forced her to . After being raped by a client, Valérie Bacot couldn’t take it anymore and shot her husband. He abused her mentally and physically for the last 18 years, and before he forced her to marry, he was her stepfather. She hid the body with the help of the children and their school friend.
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For years he beat her, raped her and forced her into prostitution. Valérie Bacot survived. “I just wanted to protect myself and my children’s lives”
The Valérie Bacot case is very well known in the media and has been covered for months. Daniel Polette first raped a woman when she was just a 12-year-old child. He was her stepfather at the time. He later married her, and she bore him four children. Bacot told her story in her autobiography, Tout Le Monde Savait (Everyone Knew).
She detailed their first forced sexual intercourse and conception when she was 17 years old. It was then that the torturer made her his wife. It turns out that first the mother, then the extended family, and finally even the police turned a blind eye to the problem of domestic violence she was struggling with. Reports were also made by Valérie’s children, who were also allegedly abused by the man. It didn’t bring any results. Bacot was a victim of Daniel Polette for 18 years. It wasn’t until she was raped by a client that something snapped inside her and she took drastic steps to free herself.
I just wanted to protect myself and my children’s lives. In my eyes, nothing else mattered.
she wrote in her autobiography.
The Valérie Bacot case highlighted the failure of the French authorities to deal with domestic violence. The system’s first failure was the decision to charge Polette with the lesser crime of sexual abuse for the rapes he had committed of Valérie when she was a child. The result was a lenient sentence of only three years. The second failure was allowing Valérie’s mother, Joëlle Aubagne, to visit the man in prison with the daughter he had wronged. Less than three years later, no one stopped Polette from returning to their home, where he gave the teenager hell again.
No one seemed to find it strange that Daniel had come back to us as if nothing had happened.
Valérie Bacot revealed in her book.
She stood trial for the murder of her husband and was sentenced. “He was a monster who didn’t deserve to live”
Valérie Bacot’s trial lasted over a week. At the time, Polette’s family members and ex-girlfriends testified, describing him as a “monster”. The man’s sister, Monique, revealed that he had also raped her since she was 12 years old. “He told me to go to the bedroom, made me sit up, then laid down on the bed and held a knife to my throat. He said: “Listen: what happens stays between us. Don’t tell anyone because a bullet for mom and a bullet for you.” That was every week. It was getting more and more brutal,” Monique said. Polette’s ex-wife, Michèle, also confessed that the man had abused her. “He was a monster who didn’t deserve to live,” she told the court.
Initially, Valérie Bacot faced life imprisonment. The jury at the Saône-et-Lore court deliberated for nearly five hours before rejecting lawyer Nathalie Tomasini’s claim that Bacot was not of sound mind at the time of the murder. As a result, the woman was found guilty, but Valérie’s difficult life and what she had to face over the years were taken into account. “Valérie is the voice of all those who have been victims of violence behind closed doors that we know nothing about,” Tomasini told the court.
After the prosecutor’s proposed sentence for her husband’s murder, Valérie fainted and emergency services had to be called in to help her. All due to the fact that after many years of suffering, she was finally supposed to regain the life taken from her. Although she was sentenced to five years in prison, four of which were suspended, she had already spent a year in custody. This meant that she could serve the rest of her sentence at large. There was applause in the courtroom as the judge announced his verdict.
Today, Valérie Bacot lives free. Trying to regain lost happiness
the story of Valérie Bacot and the media trial drew the eyes of the whole world to France. The lack of adequate support for victims of domestic violence is a difficult topic and it cannot be ruled out that there are more similar situations. A problem was diagnosed, which is the lack of reaction of the environment and relatives to the harm. In her autobiography, Bacot repeatedly emphasized that everyone was aware of the actions of her tormentor, but no one helped her or the children. The difficult situation of the woman and the lack of support from the authorities outraged French citizens, but also international public opinion. The acquittal of the woman was demanded by both lawyers and people from around the world. For this purpose, a special petition for the release of Bacot was created, which was signed by over 705,000 people. people.
“I would like to thank the court and everyone who gave me support. Now it’s time for a new fight for all the other women who are being mistreated,” Valérie told the press after leaving the courthouse. Today, she is a free woman and tries to rearrange her and her children’s lives.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
