In the documentary L’Affaire d’Outreau, broadcast this Tuesday, January 17, 2023 on France 2, Jonathan Delay looks back on his childhood and his memories of his father, Thierry Delay.
In a blue shirt and beige jacket, his hair cut short and styled with gel, Jonathan Delay is nothing like the six-year-old boy he was in the 2000s. Yet he remembers everything as if it were yesterday. In the documentary The Outreau Affairbroadcast this Tuesday, January 17, 2023 on France 2, the one who is one of the recognized victims of the case confides with an open heart about the abuse he suffered. Without filter, he looks back on his difficult childhood, between a negligent mother and a violent, alcoholic father, who left in him indelible memories.
“My father, Thierry Delay, is someone who was greatly feared in the neighborhoodsays the young man, now 27 years old. He scared everyone. He is an alcoholic, very violent, he drank a lot at the timeThis violence, Jonathan and his three brothers, Chérif, 10 years old, Dimitri, 8 years old, and Dylan, 4 years old, paid the price. Even today, Jonathan remembers a very special image: that of his father watching him through the keyhole of his room. “My dad liked to dress up and scare us at nighthe confides. There was the whole of the lock. Sometimes I stood up on the bed and saw an eye. I know it was him, he was watching. He was mentally ill, he needed no excuse, no reason to hit us. You never knew when it was going to drop. You watch TV, you slap yourself, you don’t really know why.”
“The way we lived at home meant that we grew up very quickly”
“The way we lived at home made us grow up very fast“, admits the young man. Placed in foster care in the early 2000s, the Delay children quickly showed signs of trauma. When Jonathan, in particular, asked his foster family, Mr. and Mrs. Chochois, where the pornographic tapes were stored, it became clear that the Delays had not had a childhood like the others. From there, Jonathan and his brothers exposed the rapes of their relatives and neighbors, kicking off one of the most famous criminal cases of the turn of the century.