“Memorable pies” distributed by a man dressed in a monk’s robe and “shell-tipped rangers”. From the disappearance of Emile on July 8 in Le Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), his profile intrigues investigators. This profile is that of Emile’s grandfather, Philippe Vidovini. At 58 years old, this osteopathic physiotherapist based in La Bouilladisse (Bouches-du-Rhône), near Marseille, was in charge of the child aged two and a half on the day of his disappearance.
More than eight months after the events, the chained Duck reveals in an article published this Tuesday March 19 the troubled past of this man, described as an authoritarian patriarch. According to duck, the Aix-en-Provence public prosecutor’s office was to hear Philippe Vidovini this Tuesday, March 19, mentioned with the intermediate status of assisted witness in a vast legal case targeting the traditionalist community of Riaumont in Pas-de-Calais. Since 2014 and until 2017, the courts were seized by a series of complaints filed by former students of the establishment, for facts dating from the early 1990s, combining rape, sexual assault and mistreatment.
“I come across as a dominator who terrorizes everyone”
A member of the community between 1991 and 1994, Philippe Vidovini joined it as scout leader. Before making his temporary monastic vows and becoming a supervisor, calling himself “Brother Philippe”. Duck relies on the testimony of a former supervisor to describe a man considered to be a “guru”. In a private Facebook group that the weekly was able to consult, the former residents testify to the “terror he inspired” and of “his memorable pies”. “I kept all five fingers on my butt for two months,” writes a former member of the community cited by the weekly. Heard by the Lille PJ, as part of a custody measure in April 2018, Emile’s grandfather only recognized punishments “a little harsh” on the children educated in this boarding school mixing boys from good families and teenagers who have dropped out of school.
According to the Parisian, the presence of Philippe Vidovini as an assisted witness in this affair was known since the first days of the investigation by the gendarmes of the Marseille research section mobilized on the “Emile” file. Philippe Vidovini would also be a follower of a rigorous education. A doctrine that he would have applied to his ten children and also to his grandson Emile.
In an interview given to Christian Family On September 22, the little boy’s grandparents reacted to the tragedy, defending themselves from this reputation already raised after the little boy’s disappearance. “I come across as a dominator who terrorizes everyone […] This is all false but I don’t care. The press hurts us but the people around us are truly extraordinary! The proof that God exists is the kindness shown to us every day. the man told the magazine. In this case divided into four judicial investigations, eleven people, religious and lay people, were indicted or placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness. Contacted this Tuesday morning by the Parisianthe Béthune public prosecutor’s office (Pas-de-Calais) announced that this judicial information “are still in progress” And “should be completed soon”.