SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

France court jails man for 30 years over torching partner

A French court on Friday sentenced a man to 30 years in jail for burning his partner alive for trying to leave him.

French police logo on a police car
A photograph shows a French police logo on a police car. On Friday, a French man was jailed for 30 years for torching his partner. (Photo by FRED TANNEAU / AFP)

Jonathan Boillet, 36, has been on trial since Tuesday at a criminal court in northern France for murdering 33-year-old Sandy Cucheval in November 2020.

He burnt the mother of four alive in a car they were travelling in. She was admitted to the burns unit at a hospital in the northern city of Lille where she died a week later.

The regional criminal court in the city of Saint-Omer sentenced him to 30 years in prison with a minimum of 20 years without parole, and mandatory treatment for his alcohol and drug addictions.

Boillet initially denied murdering Cucheval, claiming she died as the result of an accident.

On Thursday he finally said: “It was me who doused her in petrol.”    

On the floor of a garage afterwards, Cucheval herself had told a policewoman that Boillet had poured petrol on her and then set her alight.

A local resident said she saw the car bursting into flames and the woman getting out of the vehicle like “a human torch”.

Cucheval had four children, the youngest just three-and-a-half years old at the time.

She had been with Boillet for several months, but wanted to leave him.

At the age of eight, Boillet was sexually assaulted and raped by an uncle eight years his senior. When he was 11, he began abusing alcohol and drugs.

He has an extensive criminal record, including four convictions for domestic violence, and admits having violent outbursts.

On average, one woman is killed every three days in France.

According to the justice ministry, 94 women were killed in 2023.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

French cinema boss on trial for sexual assault

The head of France's top cinema institution Dominique Boutonnat denied sexually assaulting his godson as he went on trial Friday in a case that has led to calls for him to step down.

French cinema boss on trial for sexual assault

The trial comes as French cinema reels from a renewed #MeToo reckoning that has seen several big names, including acting legend Gerard Depardieu, accused of sexual abuse.

READ ALSO: French actor Gérard Depardieu to be tried for sexual assault in October

Activists have denounced Boutonnat’s continued leadership of the National Centre of Cinema (CNC), whose role includes overseeing measures to curb sexual violence in the industry.

His godson accuses him of trying to masturbate him during a holiday in Greece in 2020 when he was 19.

“I looked at him to find my godfather and that’s when I saw someone completely different… It was someone using me to masturbate,” the godson, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court.

Boutonnat responded in court that it was his godson who had initiated the situation and kissed him.

“I feel bad about leaving an ambiguous situation, but to say there was a sexual assault is false,” he told the court.

He was placed under investigation in February 2021 but still reappointed by the government as head of the CNC in July 2022.

Training to prevent abuse has in recent months become obligatory for films seeking public funding via the CNC.

The CNC told AFP that the case against Boutonnat came from “the private sphere” and had no relation to its activities.

SHOW COMMENTS