A father suspected of having, with three friends, beaten up a 16-year-old unaccompanied minor accused of having sexually assaulted his six-year-old daughter was taken into custody with them on Thursday morning in Roanne (Loire), a we learned from a judicial source.
The blows with an electric cable earned 10 days of ITT for the young man who has been in pre-trial detention since his indictment for aggravated sexual assault on a minor under 15, after the events that occurred last week, said to AFP the prosecutor’s office of Roanne. The minor denies any sexual assault and filed a complaint on Wednesday against his attackers.
The Roanne public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for “violence in meetings with a weapon by destination”, in parallel with that concerning sexual assault, the same source specifies.
The minor, originally from Guinea, had been collected in September by the services of the Loire Departmental Council and placed in an apartment by the association La Backup, with daily monitoring by specialized educators.
“I went crazy”, confided the father of the family
The girl’s mother claims to have surprised him at home, on the night of Thursday to Friday and accuses him of having attacked the child who was sleeping in his room before fleeing. The father had filed a complaint and set up surveillance with friends.
The following night, the minor who resides less than a hundred meters from the house was recognized by a neighbor as he was walking in the vicinity.
“I went crazy (…) I managed to jump on him and catch up with him, blows were struck” admitted the father on RMC. “I shouldn’t have done it but I don’t regret it in any way,” he said on BFM TV.
His words made the Roanne prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini jump: “In France, nothing justifies violence and we do not take justice into our own hands. Even if the defendant had committed the facts, that did not give the right to the father to act like this”, he told AFP and various media, sparking a cascade of reactions on social networks.
The case took on a political dimension, with statements from two of the Republican presidential candidates, then, in response to protests from the judicial unions.
“I will not condemn the father who protects his daughter,” said Eric Ciotti on BFMTV. “I don’t know what I would have done, maybe I would have reacted exactly the same way,” said MP LR Aurélien Pradié, on CNews.