Many confess in the face of evidence. Few express regret. Six months in prison were requested by the public prosecutor against ten of the eleven defendants tried on Thursday in Valenciennes, in the North. They are suspected of sexual relations with a teenager they met on Snapchat or coco.fr.
“I had a lot of dark thoughts,” said the youngest defendant, 25, with sobs in his voice. He admits to several fellatios, but denies any vaginal penetration and any transaction, contrary to what the young girl claims.
Child pornography images uploaded to the “dark web”
Child pornography images were found on his computer. He mentions files “downloaded en masse” on the “dark web”, the hidden side of the internet, the content of which he was unaware of. He knew the victim was a minor, but thought she was 16, not 14. “Why wouldn’t I have believed her?” »
The victim’s father, not present at the hearing, stares at him with a black look, without a word. “At 14, she looked 12,” remembers this father who stands straight. “She looks very young. She’s a child. »
All those involved are also being prosecuted for “solicitation”, “detention” and “acquiring” a pornographic image of a minor. The prosecutor, Juliette Chopin, stressed that the case had been the subject of “correctionalization”, rather than a trial, avoiding more serious qualifications for the defendants, punishable by twenty years of imprisonment.
“I was in a fog”
“I wasn’t feeling well, in a fog,” remembers a fifty-year-old, whose red ponytail tends towards gray. When meeting the victim, he “gave her 16 years”. But still let her give him oral sex. “I did that to find out if I could still please,” assures another defendant, a banker, 25 years old, who admits to sexual relations.
He wanted to know through these relationships if he was “still in love with his partner”, with whom he is still in a relationship. “I want to advise everyone, if they see a psychologist who doesn’t suit them, to go see another,” he continues.
“Is that the only advice you have to give?” And contact minors on social networks? », Retorts the teenager’s lawyer, Me Grégory Frère. “I did something stupid,” says another defendant, 47 years old. “But it wasn’t me who was hitting on her, it was the other way around. » He ends up apologizing: “I hope she can rebuild herself and have a fulfilling life,” he said, in a rare expression of regret.
On Snapchat and on the coco.fr website
Everyone met the teenager on the Internet, mainly on Snapchat and on the site coco.fr, “known for promoting sexual relations between adults and minors”, underlines the prosecutor. Extremely varied profiles: 25 to 60 years old, here a Stellantis employee in Valenciennes, there a 27-year-old baker who “does not deny” having been a pimp via Snapchat, but refutes any sexual relationship with the teenager.
The investigation began when the teenager’s parents presented themselves at the Bouchain gendarmerie, in the North, in April 2023, worried about her absence, recalled the president of the court. Found at the home of one of the defendants in Pas-de-Calais, she explained her escape by a “need to be alone”, notably justified by her mother’s alcoholism.
The investigation made it possible to identify exchanges with 54 accounts, including naked photos. The main events lasted from October 2022 to April 2023. Another defendant already tried in particular for “recourse to the prostitution of a minor” was sentenced in February to two years in prison, including 18 months suspended.