In police custody, he retracted his statements. Arrested this Tuesday, the suspect involved in the disappearance of Morgane – since found – admitted to having had a sexual relationship with the teenager during the two weeks during which he hosted her. A statement which led to his indictment, in particular, for “rape”.
The 21-year-old man, arrested at his workplace in Coutances (Manche) on Tuesday, admitted during a fourth hearing in police custody “to having had a sexual relationship with Morgane (…) on one occasion and, according to him, consented », indicated the public prosecutor of Saint-Brieuc, Nicolas Heitz in a press release. Initially, the suspect and the teenager denied any sexual relationship.
During a press conference late Wednesday, the prosecutor indicated that “a skin examination revealed no lesions, as did the gynecological examination. No injury was therefore materialized on her.” However, additional samples were taken to “determine whether or not there have been recent intimate relationships,” said Nicolas Heitz.
A prohibited act
Following his police custody, the young man was indicted for “subtraction without fraud or violence of a minor child” and “rape committed on a minor under 15 years of age by an adult with a difference of age of at least five years,” said the magistrate.
The Penal Code recalls that rape is defined by any “act of sexual penetration, of whatever nature, or any oral-genital act committed on the person of another or on the person of the perpetrator by violence, coercion, threat or surprise.”
Any act of sexual penetration “committed by an adult on the person of a minor under fifteen years of age or committed on the perpetrator by the minor, when the age difference between the adult and the minor is “at least five years”, recalls the Penal Code. The suspect involved in Morgane’s disappearance being 21 years old, and she 13 years old, any relationship between the two is, in fact, considered in the eyes of the law as rape.
Up to twenty years of imprisonment
The Penal Code also specifies that a “significant age difference” between the minor victim and the adult perpetrator can also constitute a “moral constraint” qualifying the acts as rape.
“When the acts are committed against a minor aged fifteen, moral constraint or surprise are characterized by the abuse of the vulnerability of the victim who does not have the necessary discernment for these acts,” specifies the law.
In principle, rape is punishable by fifteen years of criminal imprisonment. If the victim is a minor, the penalty for rape can be up to twenty years of criminal imprisonment. The profile of the young man responsible for the disappearance of Morgane should be widely studied before his judgment: this Wednesday, he was already to appear in Beauvais (Oise) in the context of another case of “subtraction” of a minor, involving a teenage girl from 14 years old, and dating from April 2024.
