At the Ille-et-Vilaine Assize Court in Rennes,
Far from view, the prison functions like a microsociety in isolation. With its rules of course, but also its codes, its hierarchy between inmates and its crude language. In prison jargon, any inmate convicted of sexual offenses, particularly against minors, is referred to as “pointer”, “pointu” or “tutu”. Qualifiers synonymous with double punishment for prisoners designated in this way. Because behind the walls, each inmate is judged by his cellmates in relation to the acts he has committed. With the robbers or traffickers at the top of the ladder and the rapists at the bottom.
This Wednesday before the Ille-et-Vilaine Assize Court in Rennes, two men are being tried for “torture or barbaric act in a meeting” on their fellow prisoner, a “pointer” precisely. The facts date back to the night of April 7 to 8, 2019 in the closed session of cell 235 at the Vezin penitentiary center, near Rennes. Three weeks earlier, the victim, aged around fifty, had been imprisoned for violating his judicial control. A repeat offender, he was sentenced in 2012 to seven years in prison for possession of child pornography and sexual assault of a minor. In the spring of 2019, he was incarcerated in the same cell as François M., aged 39, and Jorge D., 26 years old.
A rumor that he raped his daughter
And “rapists are very frowned upon in detention, they are the bottom of the scale, scapegoats,” assures a prison guard. Often placed in isolation or in specific neighborhoods to protect them, the “pointers” skim the walls and avoid walks to be forgotten. But in prison, everything becomes known quickly, especially the CVs and records of other inmates. When the secret is unmasked, the daily life of the “pointers” then becomes hell, punctuated by insults, threats, attacks and abuse from other prisoners.
When Jorge D. gets wind that his fellow prisoner allegedly raped his own daughter, he calls on him to explain the reasons for his incarceration. “It’s for another reason,” the fifty-year-old replied. The threats and bullying then begin, Jorge D. promising his roommate to “put him in PLS” and give him “a beating”. Feeling threatened, the inmate alerts the guards and asks to change cells. In vain.
A brush stuck in the anus
At the Vezin penitentiary center, the insults and humiliations increased, the victim being forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor and to wash the dishes for his fellow prisoners. Until this evening of April 7 to 8 when the violence escalated further, tipping into horror. According to the account of the president of the Assize Court, the victim was first hit and pulled by the hair. Placed on his knees and held by force by François M., the fifty-year-old was then forced to drink the urine of Jorge D. who had just relieved himself in a plastic container. With his head pressed to the ground and one knee behind his back, he then felt his boxers come down before seeing a brush and feeling excruciating pain and burning in his anus.
Examinations carried out the next day at the hospital revealed “lesions compatible with the introduction of an object into the rectum” with fifteen days of ITT for the victim. Four traces of DNA were also found on the brush without them being able to be used by investigators. Interviewed by the prison administration after this “incident”, the two fellow prisoners denied the facts. In police custody, Jorge D. did not hide his hatred of “pointers”, “waste” according to him. While claiming to be innocent, assuring that the victim had inserted the brush into her anus herself.
The other detainees “heard nothing”
A version that the two defendants maintained at the bar this Wednesday. “Strictly nothing happened, he did this to himself,” testifies François M. “And for what reasons do you think? », asks the president of the Assize Court. “I have no idea why he did that,” replies Jorge D., who throughout the investigation denigrated the victim, “a dirty pointer who talks nonsense.”
Inside the prison, hearing from prisoners held in neighboring cells did not provide any clearer insight either. “No one heard anything and four detainees even refused to be taken out of their cell,” testifies the gendarmerie officer who led the investigation, referring without naming it to the silence that reigns in the prisons. “I saw smirks in some people,” he says. Even if they had heard something, nothing would have been achieved from them. »
The trial of the two defendants continues until Friday before the Ille-et-Vilaine Assize Court. François M., still incarcerated, faces twenty years of criminal imprisonment. Jorge D. appears for his free share. But found to be a recidivist, he faces double the sentence.
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