The case resulted in the setting of a threshold of non-consent of 15 years in the event of sexual relations between a child and an adult. A man was sentenced on Friday March 15 to six years of imprisonment and imprisoned by the Yvelines Assize Court of Appeal for the rape of an 11-year-old child in 2017.
Now 35 years old, the man has appeared free since Tuesday in court after being released in November 2023. He had served a year in detention after his first conviction in November 2022 to eight years of imprisonment by the court departmental criminal of Val-d’Oise.
The decision of the Assize Court, after six hours of deliberation, fell short of the requests of the attorney general, who had requested eight years of imprisonment. The court issued a warrant of committal to the accused. “This sentence demonstrates the ambiguity of this procedure”told Agence France-Presse (AFP) his lawyer, Me Gustave Charvet.
The trial was held behind closed doors at the request of the civil party. Now an adult, the young girl was surrounded by her parents and her psychologist at the opening of the trial. In April 2017, in a park near her home in Montmagny (Val-d’Oise), the 11-year-old schoolgirl spoke with this 28-year-old man who had already approached her two weeks earlier. Father of a 9-year-old child, the latter had invited her to follow him to his building.
Two sexual acts, without physical violence, then took place in the common areas and the man’s apartment. Leaving the building, the child called her mother to tell her about the rape she had just suffered.
A first instruction for “sexual assault”
This affair became emblematic after the controversy sparked by the first qualifications. The man was initially prosecuted for “sexual abuse” before opening an instruction for “rape of a minor”.
A debate on the age of consent of minors then began, leading in April 2021 to the promulgation of a new law. Since then, an adult cannot rely on the sexual consent of a minor if he or she is under 15 years old (or under 18 years old in the case of incest).
Previously, for a sexual assault or rape to be characterized, it had to be demonstrated that the perpetrator had acted using coercion, violence, threat or surprise. Otherwise, the consent of both parties was assumed implicitly, without consideration of the age of the protagonists, and the control that an adult can exercise over a child. Only children under 5 years old were automatically considered non-consenting by case law.
The accused was tried under the old law, the more severe criminal law not being retroactive.