- Amid the bundles of closely-typed paperwork and legal
tomes, the lawyers flourish and stab their ballpoint pens at scrawled sketches
of family trees on their open notebooks.
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- The scribbled charts are helping them to keep track of
the dips and twists of some of the most distressing and gruesome stories
of depravity ever to be brought to light in a French court.
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- That France's biggest ever criminal trial should be taking
place in the beautiful Loire valley town of Angers, famed for its Cointreau,
its heritage and its meandering river, is as inexplicable as the horror
unfolding on the notebooks.
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- Sixty-six residents are facing charges that include child
sex abuse, incest and pimping their own children for not much more than
the price of a carton of cigarettes.
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- The 45 alleged victims are children aged from six months
to 12 years old. The accused are their mothers, fathers, grandfathers,
aunts and uncles. Last week at Angers assizes court, it took three days
for four clerks to read out the 430-page charge sheet against the 39 men
and 27 women. The charges include abusing 26 girls and 19 boys during at
least 100 orgies, some of which included sado-masochistic sex games.
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- Marine - not her real name - was mentioned time and again.
From the age of seven, she was allegedly raped by her grandfather, Philippe,
now 59, her father, Franck, and two dozen others. Franck, a 36-year-old
former drifter, and his wife, Patricia, 32, allegedly prostituted Marine,
her younger sister, InËs, and their little brother, Vincent, in return
for small amounts of money and cartons of cigarettes. As an inducement
for playing 'doctors and nurses' or 'the lock and key game', the children
were said to have been offered a 'first prize' of camping trips by the
nearby River Loire.
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- 'When you try to draw a family tree for Marine, who we
believe was assaulted by 25 adults, you just run out of space on a sheet
of A4,' said lawyer Alain Fouquet.
-
- The case, which began in earnest on Thursday, is due
to hear evidence from 225 witnesses. By the time it ends - at the earliest
in mid-July - it is likely to have raised critical questions about the
way in which France's obsession with secrecy effectively protects re-offending
paedophiles. The country seems to be greeting the horrific details of the
crimes with disbelief verging on denial. In Angers, former neighbours of
Franck and Patricia claim not to have known them.
-
- 'Nobody in their right mind can identify with the horrors
we are hearing about. You cannot believe these things were done by human
beings. It's as though those people were from another world,' one resident
said.
-
- Franck and Patricia met at a hostel for the homeless
in the city. Brought up in institutions and considered 'mentally deficient'
in reports, Franck can neither read nor write. He was one of Philippe's
three children from a first marriage. It ended in alcoholism and violence
and the alleged rape of Franck's younger sister, Lydia, when she was six
years old.
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- In 1988, when Franck was 19, he went to live in Marseille
where his father, by then remarried to a woman who gave him a further two
children, had found a job as a caretaker. His second wife discovered Philippe
raping one of his sons. Philippe went to jail for 13 years.
-
- After serving his sentence, Philippe returned to Angers
in 2001 to live with Franck, his wife Patricia and their three children,
Marine, InËs and Vincent. Asked by Judge Eric MarÈchal why
he invited his father - who had raped him - into his home, Franck answered:
'I was stupid. I wanted him to get to know my children.'
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- By the time Philippe moved in, it seems a cycle of incest,
paedophilia and procurement had been established. It was not long before
Philippe raped his seven-year-old granddaughter, Marine. 'I know it's not
normal,' Philippe told the court, 'and I knew that by doing it I would
go back to prison. But I had to do it.'
-
- When Judge MarÈchal responded: 'But you're her
grandfather,' Philippe said: 'What is it to be a grandfather? I don't know.
If I am honest I do not love any of my children. I don't care about them.
I do not know my grandchildren or even some of my children. I was in jail.'
The judge then turned to Franck and asked him how he felt: 'I felt disgusted.
He is a fucking bastard. Only shit comes out of him.'
-
- Screaming, shouts and fainting in the courtroom marked
the start of the trial, as several defendants learnt for the first time
which of their co-defendants had betrayed them to the police. 'Bastard.
I'll get you in the [prison] exercise yard,' screamed one man to another
as he heard details from the charge sheet read out in open court. He was
brought under control by police officers ringing the defendants in the
courtroom, specially built for the occasion at a cost of 1 million euros
(about £700,000).
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- One woman defendant urinated in her seat when allegations
against her were read out. Another woman went into shock. A third woman,
a witness who is pregnant was taken away and excused.
-
- The 66 defendants answer the charges against them in
monosyllabic terms. At times, they seem unaware of the gravity of the accusations
against them. On Friday, during her character interview, Patricia, who
is accused of cruelty and admits procuring her own and other children for
paedophile acts, was asked by Franck's lawyer what she saw as her failings
as mother. She answered: 'I was not great at cleaning, and I smoke.' The
lawyer asked: 'Is that all?. She answered: 'I cannot think of anything
else.' Patricia claimed in pre-trial questioning to have been raped by
her father. But on Friday the prosecutor, citing dates, suggested she fabricated
the rape to attract the jury's sympathy.
-
- Philippe, Franck and Patricia's story is typical, rather
than exceptional, among the defendants. Philippe's 45-year-old sister,
Nathalie, claims that one of her other brothers, Patrick, raped her as
a child. Nathalie - who is accused of failing to report attacks on her
children - also claims that her daughter, Armelle, born in 1997, was raped
by someone described as 'Mr Red', whom she suggested was Franck dressed
as Father Christmas.
-
- The investigating magistrates consider Franck to be one
of four key suspects. If found guilty he faces several terms of life imprisonment
for allegedly raping his own three children, for raping two other minors
repeatedly, for sexually assaulting others and - a charge he admits - for
procurement of minors. Lawyer Pascal Rouiller, who is acting for five of
the accused said the families of the defendants have much in common. 'They're
from the fourth world. More than half of these people grew up starved of
affection, often in large extended families, with violence and sexual abuse,
alcohol and poor or non-existent education.'
-
- However, there are also suggestions that more upstanding
members of Angers' society - who might have paid large sums of money to
the four main defendants - may be missing from the list of the accused.
In statements quoted in the charge sheet, 'smart' men and women wearing
suits are said to have watched or taken part in orgies. It is also stated
that video films and Polaroid photographs were taken during orgies, including
footage of a woman wearing a black latex S&M balaclava and of men with
tattoos and piercings who are not among the defendants. But this evidence
has not been found in police searches. So far, prosecutors have preferred
to refer to a 'clan' operation rather than a paedophile 'ring' but, in
an unusual step, which suggests magistrates believe more evidence will
be found, the investigation remains open while the trial proceeds.
-
- The children - 40 of whom are in care and five are with
relatives - will not testify in open court. Videos will be shown of their
testimonies.
-
- And, in a move to protect the identities of the children,
Judge MarÈchal has closed the hearing to the public and imposed
reporting restrictions that include changing all the victims' first names
and omitting their surnames and those of the defendants.
-
- Christian Gillet, the local head of social services,
said helping the victims to mature into stable adults will be a challenge.
'All of them have become human beings without boundaries or a sense of
right and wrong.'
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2005
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- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/
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