On Tuesday, a 65-year-old priest was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment by the criminal court of Pas-de-Calais for rape and sexual assault committed on a teenager between 2005 and 2006, we learned from the registry and of a lawyer.
This prison sentence, with a warrant of committal, is accompanied by a five-year socio-judicial follow-up with, in particular, a treatment order, a ban on engaging in an activity involving minors and a ban on contact the victim. In the event of non-compliance with these obligations, the accused risks an additional three years in prison.
“No questioning from him”
“We are relieved that justice has done its job. This prison sentence seems fair”, reacted Master Zakia Aït Ali Slimane, the victim’s lawyer, who was 13 years old at the time of the first facts, in 2005. “During the hearing, we did not felt no questioning from him. He said he didn’t remember anything. We are happy to have been heard, ”she also rejoiced.
The teenager had met the priest, Alain Bonjour, during a visit in 2004 to Lisieux, where he was responsible in particular for welcoming groups of young people for the Notre-Dame-de-Vie institute. She had then confided to him her distress, a recent suicide attempt, and her need to turn to God. She had then started a correspondence with him.
In his letters, the priest’s vocabulary had gradually changed. The victim told investigators that he spoke of “love fire”, joked about the possibility of a marriage, said one day that he “dreams” of his body. “I needed attention at the time, he had become a referent adult, whom I trusted,” the young woman, now 31, told AFP. Religion was at the time “a reason to live, a refuge” for her.
According to the investigation, the priest then forced him to kiss, caress and touch during visits in 2005 and 2006. While he was hosting him, he offered to sleep in his bed, until the rape at the summer 2006.
The victim filed a complaint in 2015, concerned in particular to protect potential future victims. Chaplain in schools, Alain Bonjour was “always in a position to harm”, she explains today. The accused had confessed to the facts in police custody in 2017, before then minimizing them before the judge. During the investigation, former students of establishments where he officiated testified to inappropriate tactile behavior, or sexual allusions and jokes.