This Friday, the criminal court of Valenciennes, in the North, sentenced men prosecuted for sexual acts with a teenage girl met on Snapchat or the online chat site Coco to sentences of up to 10 months in prison.
Of the twelve men tried, two were given suspended prison sentences for soliciting and possessing child pornography images. The others received prison sentences for “sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor with an age difference of at least 5 years”.
Rape incidents which have been penalized
“These are acts of rape which have been criminalized,” underlined the president at the end of the deliberations, reminding the convicted men that they could have been referred to an assize court. The court found that none of these men could have been unaware that the teenager was under 15 years old at the time they had relations with her. During the hearing on April 25, the victim’s father estimated that at 14, his daughter “looked 12”.
Among these men aged 25 to 60, the most heavily sentenced, due to the number of relationships with the young girl, was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment, including 20 months suspended on probation for two years.
For all, the court imposed an obligation of care, a ban on carrying out any paid or voluntary activity in contact with minors for five years, and registration in the file of perpetrators of sexual or violent offenses (Fijais).
“These are significant sentences for the defendants but which will never make up for what this young girl has lost,” reacted the lawyer for the teenager’s family, Grégory Frère. “They are intended to keep them under surveillance for a certain period of time to ensure that they are treated. »
On Snapchat and the very controversial site Coco
All these men met her on the Internet, mainly on Snapchat and on the Coco site, “known for promoting sexual relations between adults and minors,” the prosecutor pointed out.
The investigation began in April 2023 when the teenager’s parents presented themselves to the gendarmerie, worried about her absence. Found at the home of one of the defendants, she explained her escape by a “need to be alone”, notably justified by her mother’s alcoholism. Thus, the investigations made it possible to identify exchanges with 54 accounts, notably including naked photos.