“It Happened Several Times”: The scene in Sambre’s sketch actually happened

France 2 is no stranger to news adaptations. After the famous Laetitia, which returned to the case of Laëtitia Perrais, the channel once again teams up with director Jean-Xavier de Lestrades for Sambre, a sharp mini-series that should not leave anyone indifferent.

Adapted from the works of Alice Gérault, who also worked on the scripts with Marc Herpus, this fiction in 6 episodes highlights the story of one of the greatest serial abusers known to France and thus shows the evolution of the justice system, which, even today, is struggling to stop sexist and sexual violence.

Between 1988 and 2018, on the day of his arrest, Dino Scala (credited as Enzo Salina in the series) said:Sambri bullyIt is said to have attacked nearly eighty women on the banks of the Sambre in northern France.

While the screenwriters sometimes cut certain moments of the story to adhere to the codes of fiction, there are some incredible passages that still happened. As it was in Sambri episode 2 which airs this Monday from 10:20 PM onwards.

A crazy anecdote about a robot portrait

In the second episode, titled “Irene (The Judge)”, Enzo Salina attacks a woman in her home. If usually the abuser manages to hide his face, this time he is hosted by his victim, who then paints a composite portrait for the police. A painting that looks exactly like the character played by Jonathan Turnbull.

At this point in the story, Enzo has become very friendly with many of the station’s police officers. However, none of them appear to have any connection between the friend and the suspect. While he spends the evening drinking at the police station with his footballer friends, he even goes so far as to stand next to a portrait of a robot and joke with a police officer, played by Julien Frison, that the man they’re looking for looks great. similar to him.

“Damn, but that’s also true” they reply and laugh before continuing the evening. An anecdote straight out of the worst detective movie, which is nevertheless very real, as expected at the press briefing organized to promote the Ando Sambri.

“It is correct. During the trial, he also stated that this happened more than once.“, he explained. “This robot portrait existed. And in retrospect, we realize that this is a copy of the abuser. is an educator. But in France we don’t have this culture of communication.“

“Police refused to release the photo, even though it was in local police stations. It is interesting that Belgium took out the portrait made in France and distributed it.”

“There is a form of denial…”

But then how do we explain that police officers who met the bully every week at football practice could have missed this similarity? For Alix Poisson, who plays Christine, Enzo’s first victim, the answer is very simple.

“There is a form of denial“, she said. “For a very long time, we didn’t want to see that 95% of the perpetrators were completely normal people who went to work, were punctual, had families…“

“This is troubling because if we accept this initial premise, it means that we all have someone who can do it. To me that doesn’t mean the police were incompetent when they saw the sketch. It was simply impossible for them. They knew him, he was a normal man.”

Also important to Alice Gero, who wrote the piece from which the series was adapted, was the development of Enzo’s character in Sambre. This made it possible to place the criminal in banality and normality, and thus to emphasize that he was far from the stereotype of the bully often portrayed in the media.

Watch two new episodes of Sambre from 21:10 on France 2. Episode 6 is now available for preview on the france.tv platform.