A father accused of rape, before the Gard Assize Court, the first reports in 1996

La jeune femme a porté plainte, une fois adulte, à la gendarmerie du Vigan. Midi Libre – ARCHIVE MiKAEL ANISSET

Two families have been clashing before the Gard criminal court since this week. Jean-Louis' daughter-in-law was a young adult when she filed a rape complaint against her father-in-law. But the first reports date from 1996

Since Monday, Jean-Louis C., a sixty-year-old, has appeared before the Gard Assize Court. Accused of having raped his stepdaughter who was then only a child in the 1990s, the sixty-year-old, defended by Me Aurélien Vergani, denies the facts with which he is accused. His three other children, his wife and other witnesses support him and assure that this man is not the rapist presented by the prosecution. Opposite, her daughter-in-law, defended by Me Laure Mattler, is supported by her companion, friends, her godfather who welcomed her, for a time, at his home in Montpellier when she left his family. 

It took a long time for this sensitive file – as is often the case in these rape cases – to arrive before the Gard Assize Court. Much too long. She was around ten years old when her stepfather allegedly raped her. It was March 26, 1996, the day after the birth of her little brother, the third child born from this union with the complainant's mother and stepfather. The mother had just given birth.  " If you speak, I will kill you all, the father-in-law is said to have declared. And the rapes continued for more than ;one year.

Complaint to the Vigan gendarmerie

"I don't understand my daughter's denunciations, the mother testified yesterday. Jean-Louis (Editor's note: the accused) does not deserve this. I would have noticed. I was on parental leave and still with my children. If he had done something, he would have told me." 

And yet, as early as 1991, a school teacher reported traces of blows on the little girl's face. 1991-1992, it was the PMI (maternal and child protection) or a social worker who worried. Then come the denunciations from neighbors. Hello abused childhood is contacted. A first investigation carried out by the gendarmerie is closed. No prosecution. The investigation later carried out by investigators from the Nîmes police station proved equally unsuccessful. The family then lived on rue Galilée in Nîmes. The facts of rape are still mentioned, in the apartment, the car.  

The child, his father, his mother, those around him will be heard. " You don't even ask him (his daughter: Editor's note),   what happened", notes, Me Laure Mattler, the young woman's lawyer woman, speaking to the mother. You believe him when he tells you that he was raped by his father when he was a child, and not her! "Why didn't you take her to a gynecologist ?",  asks the president of the court, Christian Pasta. The young woman will file a complaint, once an adult, in 2012 with the Vigan gendarmerie. The debates continue today. 

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