On February 22, 2001, the examining magistrate Fabrice Burgaud was entrusted with a judicial investigation relating to accusations of rape of minors in Outreau (Pas-de-Calais). An unprecedented affair which led to a parliamentary commission of inquiry in 2006 following malfunctions in the investigation.
The affair broke out on February 25, 2000 in the HLM housing estate of the Tour du Renard in Outreau, in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Four children of the couple of Thierry Delay and Myriam Badaoui tell their childminder about the sexual abuse that their parents allegedly subjected them to. Pedophile orgies filmed in the family home dating back to the years 1995-2000. The investigation begins: Myriam Badaoui admits part of the facts and accuses dozens of individuals of rape, including the Legrand father and son. A good number of people are therefore arrested: a bailiff, a taxi driver, a baker…
On the judicial side, the investigation is entrusted to judge Fabrice Burgaud, who has held his first post for a year. In line with the Dutroux affair, which shook Belgium in 1996, the shadow of a huge pedophile network is thus suspected. And to the accusations of incest, are added suspicions going as far as the murder of a little girl. In total, eighteen suspects are therefore imprisoned. And for their part, twenty-four children are placed in foster families. Victims who are heard and re-heard by psychological experts who attest to their statements. The defendants therefore all remain in preventive detention for the duration of the investigation. But one of the accused dies in prison of a drug overdose. The case is publicized.
Outreau: a trial with twists and turns
On May 4, 2004, the trial in the Outreau case opened at the Saint-Omer courthouse. Nine weeks to rule on the fate of the 17 indicted individuals. But there was a dramatic change on May 18, 2004 when Myriam Badaoui declared that she had lied. She then cleared 13 of the 17 accused. The instruction collapses but Judge Burgaud does not back down. On July 2, 2004, the verdict fell: seven acquittals and ten convictions. Thierry Delay and Myriam Badaoui receive respectively twenty and fifteen years of criminal imprisonment for rape, sexual assault, pimping and corruption of minors. A couple of neighbors are sentenced to four and six years in prison. These four people are not appealing their conviction.
Six other convicts continue to claim their innocence and appeal. In November 2005, they appeared at the Court of Assizes in Paris. But this time, the judges question the expertise and order new investigations. On November 18, 2005, Myriam Badaoui admits that she lied and that the six condemned “did absolutely nothing”. Words that her ex-husband, Thierry Delay, confirms. Two of the children also claim to have lied before the investigating judge and before the psychological experts. December 1, 2005: general acquittal. And of the seventeen children initially considered victims, only the four sons of the Delay couple are finally recognized as such. Thus on December 5, 2005, Jacques Chirac, then President of the Republic, officially presented his apologies and his regrets, promising that investigations were launched.
A parliamentary commission of inquiry was then conducted in 2006 to analyze this legal disaster. Between January 10 and April 12, 2006, the parliamentary commission of inquiry heard 221 people for more than 200 hours. Observers then denounce the dysfunction of the judicial system as well as the role of social actors. But it is above all the examining magistrate who is singled out. Fabrice Burgaud, is accused of having carried out the investigation in a disastrous manner. Since then, justice has been reformed on two main grounds: the prevention of abusive pre-trial detention and the mandatory presence of a lawyer during the adversarial hearing to decide on preventive detention. A review hearing before the Investigating Chamber has also been created.