The Reims Court of Appeal confirmed the release of a former DGSI officer for acts of sexual assault, but sentenced him to one year in prison for possession of child pornography images.
This police commander, former departmental head of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI, responsible in particular for the fight against terrorism) for the Ardennes, is “sentenced to the same sentence as at first instance for detention and consultation of “child pornography images”, or two years of imprisonment, one of which is suspended, told AFP Pauline Manesse, lawyer for the complainant at the origin of the investigation.
But he is, as in the first instance, “relaxed from the facts of sexual assault. I don’t understand this decision. The court did not draw the consequences of the data of the criminal file on the constraint and the domination exercised by (this police officer) on this young girl of a particular vulnerability, deplored Pauline Manesse. It is a curious message sent to young women who would like to denounce this type of action.
A complaint filed in 2019
In April 2019, this young woman in her twenties had filed a complaint against him in Reims for acts of rape and sexual assault which she said she had suffered when she was 17 years old. She had then just been “caught up by the DGSI, when she was ready to leave for Syria and was under the responsibility of this agent”, estimated Pauline Manesse.
In police custody, the man, then 57 years old, had acknowledged sexual touching of the complainant, on several occasions, but “always with consent”, and denied “any act of penetration of any kind whatsoever. » He maintained that he “fell in love” with her and never “forced her into anything.”
Child pornography sites
This father had also admitted to regularly consulting child pornography sites and downloading a large number of photos of young minors.
The prosecution had requested four years in prison at first instance, and had appealed following the judgment. “Having maintained that there had been no consensual relationship, the prosecution could not do anything else,” explained the prosecutor.
“As soon as the facts were revealed”, the police officer had been “disarmed by his hierarchy” then quickly “administratively suspended from his duties”, according to the statements of the prosecution at the time.