Friday, October 10, a crucial day in Albi: Cédric Jubillar will be questioned at length in a summary interrogation. He has only been questioned for short periods of time and on specific subjects so far. LT to follow for @franceinfo👇🏻
Before hearing Cédric Jubillar, the psychologist who assessed the accused must first take the stand. The courtroom and broadcast room are packed with spectators and journalists.
The hearing is open. We're hearing from Philippe Genuit, a psychological expert at the Toulouse Court of Appeal. He met with Cédric Jubillar during five sessions in 2022.
The interviews lasted "about an hour." "They all took place in the isolation ward of the remand center at the Seysses prison," he added, specifying that they usually take place "in the lawyer's visiting room."
The expert launches into a lengthy introduction on the concept of disclosure. "It's already very difficult for a victim to disclose themselves; we see it with children who have been victims of incest, we see it in domestic violence," he explains.
"A person can be a perpetrator at one point, a victim at another. Or even a victim first and then a perpetrator," adds Philippe Genuit.
We come to the main subject: Cédric Jubillar. He "presented himself courteously at all interviews, did not change his position or his way of operating," he explains.
"He did not show any mood swings, but we felt a rigid posture when he suggested to the expert that he might be negligent, particularly in the condition and tidying of the house," the expert psychologist points out.
"He has always spoken to me in a controlled manner, that is to say, he 'concretes': he leaves no room for surprise. He seems neither destabilized nor destabilized," he emphasizes.
"Cédric Jubillar has demonstrated effective logical intelligence: he is attentive to questions and responds spontaneously, without this affecting his thinking," continues Philippe Genuit.
"He can admit that he says unpleasant things, he says he doesn't care, and that he could be considered unbearable. Regarding the alleged facts, he showed a lot of distance," the expert explains.
"He is capable of empathy and of feeling what others are feeling. But the difficulty for him is measuring his own suffering and the suffering of others," he analyzes.
Cédric Jubillar "says at the same time that he is not responsible for the disappearance of Delphine Aussaguel, and shows, in the interview, little affection towards her", underlines the expert psychologist.
He notes in his speech a form of "excess in expression".
The expert delivers a very winding presentation, peppered with references to Greek etymology. We move away from the accused... Many in the audience got up very early to be there. Some listen attentively. Others grow impatient and seem circumspect.
Philippe Genuit clarified that he suggested to the accused that they work "on disclosure and not confession, which is the task of the courts." "Disclosure concerning his parentage, and his mother, in relation to filiality," he clarified.
Example sentence: "Legal truth is based on common, discussed evidence, on objectivity and consensus. We have tried to be in a position of scientificity and epistemology consists of acting on language to make the words adequate to the universe described."
"To conclude, I would quote Aristotle: the ignorant affirms, the learned doubts, the wise reflects," the expert concludes.
We don't feel like we learned much from Cédric Jubillar after this nearly hour-long presentation.
The president asks him if it is usual to meet with a defendant five times for an expert assessment. "Thank you for using the word 'usual' and not 'normal,'" the expert responds, acknowledging that he has seen Cédric Jubillar more than he usually does.
The president also notes that her report of around forty pages is also unusual. "Yes," the expert replies, admitting that, normally, one submits "10 or 15 pages."
The president notes that he didn't mention his cannabis addiction, even though Cédric Jubillar could smoke between ten and fifteen joints a day. "I couldn't," the expert says, laughing, before answering.
"He wants to have a high opinion of himself, but I'm not sure he has a high opinion of himself," the expert analyzed, questioned by the attorney general.
"When he mentions the word 'criminal,' he doesn't say 'I committed a crime,' he says, 'I am a criminal in prison nomenclature,'" he adds.
The attorney general returns to the difficulties experienced by Cédric Jubillar as a child, to the fact that "he may have suffered from abandonment." The expert interrupts him and adds a nuance: "It's a feeling of abandonment."
And continues: "I read 'Ouest-France' every day which, I think, reports fairly faithfully what is said here, and his mother does not speak of abandonment. She was in difficulty and the child was placed, but he was not abandoned."
"But that doesn't prevent the child from feeling abandoned," he adds.
Members of the public leave the broadcast room: around twenty of them have left.
Civil party lawyer Mourad Battikh asks him: "The day Cédric Jubillar knows that she (his wife) will not return, because she intends to go elsewhere and start a new life, what might his reaction be in light of her statements?"
"Since his parents separated and returned, there is a possibility that the separation could be erased by a return," the expert replies.
"And the day he is faced with the impossibility of this return, what reaction might that provoke?" the lawyer asks him.
"It's not knowing that she won't come back, it's more the circumstances and the atmosphere, whether there's still affection or a feeling of rejection. The atmosphere is as important as the act of separation," analyzes the expert psychologist.
"There are separations that go very badly, others well. What allows there to still be a connection are the children. But the post-separation period seems like something that cuts, but not something that can be supported," he adds.
"You talk about the significant people in Cédric's childhood. When asked, 'What about your mother?' He replies, 'It was okay, but she's not a significant person,'" notes Géraldine Vallat, the lawyer for Nadine Fabre, the accused's mother.
She continues: "On the morning of December 16 (2020), he had an urgent need to contact his mother. How can we explain this behavior? Can we talk about a utilitarian relationship with his mother?"
"I don't think it was a utilitarian relationship, in the sense that everything was focused on the utilitarian. There is an element of saying, 'I need someone I can talk to.' There may be a moment of utility, but it's not focused on the utilitarian," he analyzes.
The expert has been speaking since 9 a.m. He is still being questioned by the civil party lawyers, and the defense team still has to respond. Cédric Jubillar's interrogation may not begin until this afternoon.
Laurent Boguet, lawyer for the Jubillar children, asks him what effect excessive cannabis consumption can have "on the perception of external stimuli."
"I am not a toxicologist, but having worked in the psycho-criminological field for forty years, almost all of the people who ended up in prison and who had committed crimes - sexual or murder - were on psychotropic drugs," notes the expert.
"Cannabis is a psychotropic drug," he recalls.
The expert launches into the etymology of the term "intimate conviction." A murmur of annoyance rises from the audience benches in the broadcast room. "Okay, yeah," Laurent Boguet tries to interrupt.
Laurent Boguet recalls that Cédric Jubillar insulted prison guards, declaring: "They're getting raped by their wives, I don't give a damn about those little wimps." The lawyer asks him to interpret this statement.
Philippe Genuit believes that this is a "projection mechanism, to explain the problem we are facing." "Primary school children say: 'It's the one who says it who is there,'" he adds.
The hearing is suspended to allow the expert to rest. It will resume at 11:40 a.m., presumably with questions from the defense.
The hearing resumes with questions from Laurent De Caunes, still on the side of the civil parties. "You said that Mr. Jubillar is intolerant of the idea of being belittled. But does he ever belittle others?" he asks.
"He's capable of saying he doesn't care what others say. That's why I talked about paresis. And at the same time, he can go to extremes...", observes the expert psychologist.
"She was no longer my wife," Cédric Jubillar told the expert. A statement that raised eyebrows among lawyer Laurent de Caunes. Philippe Genuit analyzed: "His house is HIS house. His wife is HIS wife."
The expert claims not to have heard "any victim talk from him." "But he can complain, he can project his own demons onto others," he says.
"He can collapse when he is put down, pushed lower than the ground, or at least when he feels that way," the expert psychologist continues.
"And he can, in his speech, and perhaps in his actions, have what Claude Balier, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, author of 'Psychoanalysis of Violent Behavior', called: 'recourse to action against the anxiety of annihilation'," he explains.
Philippe Genuit invokes the expression: "when you have nothing, you are nothing." "And if you have nothing... It can lead to action," he asserts.
Laurent Nakache-Haarfi, still on the civil party side, asks him if the accused seemed manipulative. "I didn't sense any desire on Mr. Jubillar's part to manipulate me to portray himself as more handsome than he is," the expert says.
"But I can't tell you that he didn't give me some clues to make it go his way. Yes, he may have manipulated me, but I didn't feel any manipulation on his part," he adds. So, there's no clear answer on this point.
Now it's the defense's turn to ask questions. It's past noon when Emmanuelle Franck takes the microphone.
"On the other hand, everyone has tried to find, in your expertise, answers on the reasons for a transition to action, of which we do not know if it is considered or impulsive," she notes.
"Can his 'I don't care' attitude following Delphine's disappearance correspond to his personality, and not necessarily be a sign of something else?" asks the lawyer.
"There's this I-don't-care attitude that he transmits to me, in any case, this provocative position, and he himself says: 'I am provocative.' And there's what people can testify to about what they feel," replies the expert psychologist.
"I can't put myself in people's shoes and say, 'They're wrong' or 'They're right,'" he adds.
"The personality investigation nevertheless showed that Cédric Jubillar had a bumpy background, with an abandoning mother, including at this hearing, and a background marked by placements in foster families and withdrawals from foster families," the lawyer relates.
And continues: "However, the personality researcher used the term resilience. He was a kid who always had a smile on his face and developed an ability to adapt to his fate."
"Couldn't we imagine that despite the suffering caused by the divorce from Delphine Jubillar, once again, there could have been an acceptance and a gradual adaptation to this situation?" asks Emmanuelle Franck.