Florian Varin, recidivist rapist, will be tried again this week by the Assize Court of Tarn-et-Garonne. Initially sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment, the lawyers of the “Routard du rape” succeeded in overturning this verdict for procedural flaw.
Judged twice in Toulouse in 2015 and in Albi in 2018, for “rapes and attempted murder”, Florian Varin had been sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonmenttarget = “_ blank”>. The experts then affirmed that his personality was “disturbing” and included a “sociopathic dimension” who could lead “an increased risk of recurrence”. But, in 2019, his lawyers, Me Emmanuel Franck and Alexandre Martin, obtained that his trial be quashed for procedural flaw, following a psychiatric expertise that the justice had refused them. According to them, this would have made it possible to prove that the accused had realized the gravity of his acts during his nine years of detention.
This is not the opinion of Rebecca, one of the victims. “Me, I think that when he comes out, he will continue to rape and he will manage to kill without leaving a trace”, she told France Bleu. This new trial will therefore be one more ordeal preventing the reconstruction of the victims who will, once again, have to recount their trauma in front of their rapist.
Florian Varin, a dangerous serial rapist
Between December 2011 and November 2012, Florian Varin raped 6 women in several regions of France: Brittany, Haute-Garonne, Deux-Sèvres, Charente-Maritime. The last of her victims was found in a garbage container on November 4, 2012. The police found her DNA on the door handle of the room which allowed the young woman to identify Florian Varin as her rapist. . From there, the police went back to the accused’s past. By using Salvac software, they were able to reconcile the different crimes according to their modus operandi. The details of these rapes are shocking and present similarities attesting to their seriality.
Florian Varin met his victims near an ice rink or a nightclub. Before hitting and raping them, he would ask them for a hug. To cover his back, he recorded them and filmed them, forcing them to moan in case the police had to be convinced of a consensual relationship. And it worked. In Toulouse, a young woman of 17 had lodged a complaint against him. Through his recordings – and as he was clearly heard saying to the victim: “You do what I want, because you have no choice” – the police had overturned the rape charge upon hearing the moans that the rapist imposed on his victim. The complaint was therefore dismissed and, four months later, Florian Varin raped another woman in La Rochelle. “Nine years later, I still have a lot of after-effects. I have phobias, I have fears, I have insomnia, I have nightmares, because nine years later, he won’t let us turn the page . There, (…) it is the sixth time that I am going to see him “, explains Rébecca. The trial will therefore take place this week and the victims expect Florian Varin’s sentence to be even longer than that initially decided.