Two police officers tried during an appeal trial for the gang rape in Paris in 2014 of a Canadian tourist at the headquarters of the Judicial Police, were acquitted on Friday by an assize court in the Paris region.
Three years after their conviction at first instance in Paris to seven years in prison, Antoine Quirin, 43, and Nicolas Redouane, 52, were declared innocent of the rape of Emily Spanton, 42, and emerged free from the palace of justice of Créteil (south-eastern suburb of Paris) where they had been tried for three weeks.
Read also : The face of Emily, the alleged victim of 36 Quai des Orfèvres
The news was greeted with applause from relatives of the two defendants as the plaintiff left the court in tears. On Wednesday, the public prosecutor had requested a seven-year prison sentence against these two former agents of the prestigious BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade) who had not ceased to proclaim their innocence since the start of the case.
During the evening of April 22, 2014, Emily Spanton met several BRI police officers in an Irish pub located opposite their premises at the time, 36 quai des Orfèvres in Paris. While the atmosphere is flirtatious, the agents offer a visit to their premises to Mrs. Spanton, very alcoholic that evening. She comes out in shock, denouncing a gang rape. The tourist affirms that the defendants would have forced her to drink a glass of whiskey and would have imposed oral sex and vaginal penetrations on her.
Reports agreed according to the two men
The two men recognize them consented reports – a fellatio and a digital penetration. During their first auditions, they had not mentioned these sexual relations. For fear of the media fallout from the case on their private lives, they explained.
“When they were at the pub, they didn’t want to rape Emily Spanton,” said Advocate General Christophe Auger in his indictment. “They thought they could have consensual sex with her. But she doesn’t want to. So we serve her a glass of whiskey to force her consent. And what happens is what happens.” Thursday, during their pleadings, defense lawyers had sought acquittal for their clients, questioning Emily Spanton’s “credibility” and pointing to “evolutionary” statements and “lies” on her part.
On April 7, Emily Spanton explained that she had been in analysis for eight years “to try to move on”. Unemployed, too monopolized by this legal case, she lives in Canada with her parents, from which she leaves “only to do volunteer work in the church”.
In tears, she had struggled to be precise when asked about the details of the rapes she denounces, explaining that she was doing psychotherapy to “forget” this evening about which she still has nightmares.