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FranceInvestigation after alleged rape of a child by schoolmates
French justice has opened several investigations into facts reported by an 11-year-old boy between December 2021 and summer 2022.
Illustrative photo: Macron government campaign against bullying at school, March 5, 2018 in Dijon, northeastern France.
AFP
The public prosecutor’s office in Vienne, in the French department of Rhône, opened several investigations, including for rape and harassment, after an 11-year-old child allegedly suffered rape and harassment from schoolmates, he said Thursday. According to the lawyer for the family of the alleged victim, Me Jean-Christophe Basson-Larbi, the rapes took place between December 2021 and the summer of 2022, on a student from a private school in Condrieu, in the Rhône. The boy, 10 years old at the time, was allegedly repeatedly raped by one of his classmates outside the school. The alleged victim was walled in silence until August 15, when she decided to confide in her parents, then in the gendarmes.
But according to the family lawyer, the boy was the victim of reprisals. “From the start of the school year, he was the object of school harassment from several comrades and, to date, the school has not reacted appropriately” and has taken no sanction, said the lawyer, specifying that the student had not been in class since December 8. Me Basson-Larbi reports that that day, the boy was assaulted by the father of the main accused within the establishment. Today, the alleged victim, under treatment and psychological monitoring, “is very badly. He gained 8 kg, had anxiety attacks and had great difficulty coping with the hearings and expert opinions,” explains the lawyer.
Contacted by AFP, the prosecution confirmed that it had opened three investigations: one for rape, another for harassment and a third following “possible threats or acts of intimidation by the family of one of the perpetrators on the family. of the victim”. Regarding this last point, Wednesday evening, “no complaint had yet been filed”, specified the prosecution, adding that it was therefore “not in a position to indicate the content of these possible threats”.
Victim or witness of a sexual assault?
(AFP)