the essential
A thirty-year-old man was tried over two days by the Gers criminal court for alleged acts of incestuous rape committed over 6 years against his minor stepdaughter. Account of the facts.
When faced with such a case, legal debates generally take place away from any prying ear. But yesterday, no closed session was requested by the victim, the civil party. It is therefore in a courtroom open to the public (and the press) that Manuel*, 36 years old, is tried for alleged acts of incestuous rape of his stepdaughter, Marine*, committed between 2016 and 2021, in Fleurance, Sainte-Radegonde and Lectoure.
Six years during which Marine, aged 11 to 16 at the time of the events, followed her stepfather’s instructions to the letter: “You don’t say anything, otherwise I will go to prison.” Under “emotional influence”, the teenager, then on the benches of high school in her final year, ends up breaking down in front of her classmates and frees her speech.
“He was running his hands over my buttocks, my penis…”
On March 30, 2021, the Auch public prosecutor’s office received a report from the school nurse. Which relates to having received three students, who first dialed 119 (National telephone reception service for children in danger), denouncing “sexual abuse suffered” by Marine at the hands of her stepfather.
The next day, an investigation was entrusted to the gendarmerie. On April 2, Marine was heard and renewed her accusations: “I have been the victim of sexual touching and rape by Manuel since I was 11.” And provides details: “He regularly passed his hands over my chest, my buttocks, my penis, over or under my clothes. And he forced penetration on me.”
2016 or 2020?
Manuel was arrested on August 4. Faced with the police, the professional mason does not deny the incestuous relationship maintained with his daughter-in-law. “She agreed,” he defends himself. And goes so far as to put himself in the shoes of a victim. His daughter-in-law would have taken the first step “by joining him in his room”. Manuel would “only give in to the advances or attacks” of the teenager.
Point of divergence with Marine: the thirty-year-old refutes any relationship of a sexual nature prior to 2020. Truth or strategy? Marine was then 15 years old, the age of sexual majority. On the other hand, before this age, any sexual act with an adult is prohibited and punishable by criminal sanctions.
On August 6, an investigation was opened. Manuel is placed in pre-trial detention.
In the act
The incestuous relationship could have been revealed well before. Marine’s half-sister one day surprises the teenager with her father in the act in the garage. A scene that she tells to her mother, who demands explanations. “They made me and her look like crazy,” the mother recalled on the stand this Thursday. “They challenged both,” she continues. The story will not go any further…
Describing a “fusional” relationship maintained by her daughter and her partner, she was light years away from imagining what was going on behind her back… under her roof.
Still in the “blurry”, and if “she is angry with her daughter and Manuel”, the mother insists in court to stand, from now on, alongside her daughter. “I believe her 100%,” she confides. “He turned me against her.” Before specifying that, for a year now, she has cut ties with her ex-partner.
A sentence of 20 years incurred
Yesterday, before hearing the witnesses, the floor was given to the accused. “I’m the one at fault…” slips the thirty-year-old in a barely audible tone. His lawyer nods his head up and down. Should we infer from this that the defense will plead guilty, indicating to the court an awareness of the seriousness of the facts, hoping for a more lenient sentence? Response expected at the end of the day.
As a reminder, the crime of incestuous rape of a minor (under 18 years old) is punishable by 20 years of criminal imprisonment.
