The facts date back to the night of January 23 to 24, 2016. The notion of consent is at the heart of this case.
Six men have been on trial since Monday January 10, and until Friday 14, by the departmental criminal court of Haute-Garonne: they are accused of having raped two young women in the parking lot of a nightclub in Toulouse six years ago. . The case almost did not go to trial because the investigating judge concluded that the case was dismissed. But the civil parties appealed to the investigating chamber, which ruled in their favor.
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The facts go back to the night of January 23 to 24, 2016. Two young 19-year-old women go to AfterPlay, a nightclub in Toulouse. Very heavily drunk, the two friends are turned away by the bouncer and end up in the parking lot of the establishment. They are then accosted by a dozen men aged 21 to 28 from the Traveler community. They are drinking in the parking lot near vehicles.
“They too were alcoholic but less than the two young women. They took advantage of their condition“, explains to Figaro Me Muriel Amar-Touboul, lawyer for one of the two civil parties. The two young women are then separated and undergo sexual acts by two different groups: one in the back of a van and the other in the parking lot of the nightclub then in the toilets of a bowling alley located just next door. . The two young women will file a complaint very early the day after the events.
Consent at the center of the file
The notion of consent is essential in this case. The defendants indeed explain that the young women were consenting. “The facts suffer no dispute. What is at stake in this case is the following: was there consent or not? Did high-dose alcoholism remove consent? Were the defendants well aware that there was no consent from the two young women?“, questions Me Muriel Amar-Touboul, while specifying – and this is a major element – that his client “couldn’t stand up that night“. The young woman, according to her lawyer, remainstraumatized“six years after the fact but is”determinedto see justice done.
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