Indicted for the double murder of his ex-wife and his new companion, a man has been in pre-trial detention since 2019. Four years later, the alleged assassin is released pending trial , much to the chagrin of the families of the victims.
The loss of a child is a tragic event for parents, all the more so when the circumstances are of criminal origin, pushing the family to demand that justice be done. This is why the announcement of the release of Cédric Patte, the presumed murderer of his ex-wife and her new companion, by the Rouen Court of Appeal leaves a bitter taste in the parents of the victims.
“We cannot blame the magistrates for having applied the law, but when we are civil parties, victims, we have the feeling of being abandoned”deplore the parents of Caroline Noureux to our colleagues from BFM TV. The investigation is still not closed in this case while no trial date has been set. This decision to release comes after the alleged assassin spent 4 years behind bars, the maximum duration of pre-trial detention in criminal matters. The deadline has therefore passed in this investigation which began in 2019, at the time of the events.
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Logical but insurmountable
After 7 years together and the birth of a little boy, Cédric Patte and Caroline Noureux encounter difficulties in their household. Despite this, they decide to get married in 2017 hoping to work things out. But that will not be enough to save the couple who separate shortly after by mutual agreement. It was then that the young woman met Christophe Granger, her new companion with whom she decided to settle. On February 5, 2019, Cédric Patte burst into the home of this young couple armed with a shotgun.
“He always explained that he wanted to kill himself in front of them, he does not recognize the intentionality of the shots”, explains to our colleagues Me Fabien Picchiottino, Cédric Patte’s lawyer. The couple is killed on the spot while the man is indicted for murder and placed in pre-trial detention in the Rouen remand center. But while the facts are established and the accused is ready to explain himself before an assize court, the case has now dragged on for 4 years, in particular due to a change of investigating judge and in the context of the health crisis.
The investigation not being closed, the trial of Cédric Patte cannot therefore take place. However, the latter has reached the maximum duration of pre-trial detention in criminal matters. Four years after the events, Cédric Patte is therefore released from prison and placed under judicial control with the obligation to report to the police station several times a week, to reside in the Somme and the prohibition to frequent certain places and certain people. “On the legal level, the decision is logical but on the human level it is very shocking, when one is suffering from the loss of a child, the legal aspect is difficult to accept”, believes Me Stéphanie Audra-Moisson, lawyer for the Noureux family. The families of the victims are devastated by this release deemed insurmountable.