“I recognize myself as a pedophile”
“The women there are very poor, they want money,” explained the accused as if to depict this sordid context. So Bolhem Bouchiba paid remotely. And gave his instructions via Whatsapp messages, as if to “script” his pedophile fantasies.
“Were you having fun?” », asks the president. “It was more like unhealthy curiosity,” replies the artist. Who, in the box, always takes the time to weigh his words. He partially recognizes the facts and a heavy pall fell on the court when the president read in detail the messages he sent to sponsor these rapes. In these conversations, the accused threatens, for example, not to pay if certain sexual practices are not practiced. At the same time, he watched the videos in “live streaming”, in other words the very real translation of his fantasies.
“These writings are abominable, horrible. I wrote them out of desire, I enjoyed writing them because they were part of a fantasy which was to show my power, my excitement,” he describes. But behind the screen, nothing was virtual. There were definitely abused children. In tears.
“How did you react when you heard children crying? », asks the president. “I was a coward, I cut the camera. The child's cries were a kind of awakening. It would stop me for a night and I would start again. When I sent money, it took away my responsibility, it made me less guilty. »
For ten years, between 2011 and 2021, he gave free rein to his pedophile deviance. He explains that the detonator was a photo of a child found by chance on a porn site. “It resonated with me, it caught my attention,” breathes the designer.
Throughout the day, the court tried to unearth the origin of this paraphilia. To understand where this attraction to children comes from. From his childhood in a context of extreme poverty? Alleged violence from his stepfather? From the death of his mother in 2009? From his divorce? “No, I rather believe what the psychiatrist says, it’s ingrained in me. This perverse addiction was inside me. » And yet, he had already been convicted in 2014 for a sexual assault on his 9-year-old stepdaughter. Two years' suspended sentence. “If I had served a year in prison during this conviction, the height of my awareness would have been greater. »
Why did he continue to view and pay for these rapes on the internet, even though he had just been convicted? “I was in an unhealthy whirlwind. That of pleasing myself through this perverse addiction. » During his questioning on the facts, he again recalled that he was “focused on this masturbatory addiction”. In his bed, at home while his wife and child were in the house. Or in his car, sometimes, in the open countryside.
“These writings are abominable, horrible. I wrote them out of desire. »
He indicates that after three years of detention in Fleury-Mérogis, he feels “the benefits of prison. Being far from my family generated in me the need to change. »
As for the psychologist, he believes that the accused has “a perverse personality development with a sadistic dimension”. Bolhem Bouchiba agrees. “Yes, I recognized myself as a perverted pedophile. » And the psychologist concludes: “This kind of profile is almost impossible to cure. We cannot cure perversion. »
