It was described by the press as a “horror trial”. A week behind closed doors for this trial and a particularly heavy verdict delivered on Wednesday: the three accused in a child crime case were found guilty by the Meuse assizes of most of the alleged acts, limited by the investigation to a period ranging from January 2016 to April 2019. The victims are four girls and two boys.
The men, a Mosellan and a Gardois, prosecuted for rape and sexual assault on minors under 15 years old, corruption of minors or even possession of child pornography images, were sentenced to 20 years of criminal imprisonment with two-thirds security. On the other hand, they were acquitted of the acts of “rape against the youngest” of the complainants, the public prosecutor of Verdun, Sophie Partouche, told AFP. The general advocate had according to the regional daily The Republican East pointed out the “absolute sordidness” of the file in his requisitions. They will both be subject to 20 years of socio-judicial supervision and face up to seven years in prison if they do not respect it.
Ten years in prison for the partner
Le Gardois has decided to appeal, his lawyer, Me Christophe Hechinger, told AFP: “He disputes sexual assault” and “the rape of his daughter-in-law”. He was also acquitted of raping one of the boys. Accused of complicity in the rape of a minor, incestuous sexual assault and corruption of a minor, the woman who was Gardois’s partner at the time of the events was sentenced to ten years in prison, with a two-thirds suspension. She is deprived of parental authority over her daughter, one of the victims, who will soon be 18 years old.
On the three counts of prosecution, the accused was acquitted of “complicity in rape, the only criminal qualification” charged, according to Sophie Partouche. “She wants to turn the page” and will not appeal “a good decision,” said the thirty-year-old’s lawyer, Me Karine Laprévote. Unlike the other two accused, the facts with which she is accused stop in September 2017, when she left her partner. “Everything then stopped,” emphasized Mr. Laprévote.
Four victims from the same siblings
The case began in early 2019 with the arrest in the Paris region of a man who will be sentenced to 14 years in prison for attempted rape and complicity in the rape of little girls. From his phone, investigators traced it back to Jean-Claude T., father of six children from Belleville-sur-Meuse (Meuse), near Verdun, who boasts on the Internet of having sexual relations with his 11-year-old daughter. years. The four victims of the same siblings are his children. He should have been tried in Bar-le-Duc but committed suicide in prison before the trial. The investigation showed that this fifty-year-old was in contact with a single Mosellan to whom he offered to prostitute his children for prices ranging from 10 to 250 euros.
It was also via the Internet that the Lorraine contacted the couple from Gard, parents of a boy and a girl born in 2005 and 2003 from previous unions. In August 2017, the couple and the two children visited Mosellan for a week, a real “pedophilia tour operator”, according to Xavier Nodee, counsel for the four T. children. During this week the children were raped by the three adults and forced to have sexual relations with each other, relates The Republican East.
Heard by investigators in April 2019, four of six T. children, then aged 7 to 17, denounced sexual assaults and incestuous rapes committed by their father since 2016. Maximum prison sentences were imposed, Mr. Nodee is congratulated, even if his clients feel “a certain bitterness” due to the acquittals pronounced for facts in their eyes “perfectly constituted”.