“We are far from the predator”, the lawyer of the suspect indicted for rape defends himself

The case surrounding the disappearance of young Morgane Rivoal has seen many twists and turns. While the 13-year-old teenager had mysteriously disappeared on Monday November 25, 2024 in Pabu in Côtes-d’Armor around 7:15 a.m. while she was walking to take her bus to college, for two weeks of very major resources were mobilized to find her. It was finally a little more than two weeks later that Morgane Rivoal was found alive and well in the apartment of a young man of 21 years old located in a home for young workers in Coutances in La Manche.

If this young man, Adrien, was directly placed in police custody for “kidnapping and sequestration of minors under 15 years of age” before a few days later he was indicted for rape and kidnapping of a minor. If in their first statements, Morgane and Adrien had not mentioned any sexual relationship claiming to have shared nothing, it was ultimately the young man who mentioned the facts during his fourth hearing, but while affirming that according to him, she was well agreed. While his mother describes him as a person “very empathetic”, it is the turn of his lawyer to provide more details on the facts.

Morgane affair: his lawyer defends “a careless kid”

According to the lawyer of the young man involved in the disappearance of Morgane Rivoal, Me Pierre-Alexis Blevin, Adrien would be totally “dejected”. Indeed, if the 21-year-old young man admitted to having had a sexual relationship “consented” with the victim aged 13, his age clashes with French law. Indeed, according to the law adopted in 2021, at less than 13 years old a relationship cannot be judged as consensual while its age gap of more than 5 years works to its disadvantage. A crime that his lawyer tries to justify: “They are two carefree kids, unaware of what they have done. My client, he’s not a bad kid.” he defends before adding according to information from France 3 : « In this story, we are far from the kidnapper, the predator, the big bad guy. We are also far from the sequestered person”.

He mentions this age difference of more than five years singled out by the law: “ We are in a case where we have a young man and a young woman who have an age difference of a little more than 5 years, but who are very close in maturity and who perhaps have not realized, during its 15 days, of the seriousness of the facts” he asserts while highlighting the particularly ‘immature’ of his client. It was on the social network Snapchat that Morgane Rivoal and Adrien met and on which they had been talking for almost three months.

The main suspect claims to have “wanted to help”

If it was revealed that Morgane Rivoal was the victim of harassment and that she suffered from a strong addiction to social networks, it was after a very big argument with her parents that she allegedly asked the 21-year-old young man to come get her: “There was no kidnapping, no kidnapping. He wanted to help her, he came to get her and that’s it” defends Me Pierre-Alexis Blevin. While our colleagues questioned him about these two weeks when the teenager remained locked up in his home, he did not wish to answer, evoking the secrecy of the investigation: “They knew what they were doing. But I can’t talk about it.” he only replied.

The suspect was placed in pre-trial detention, which his lawyer is trying to appeal by subjecting him to a simple judicial review with the aim of allowing him to resume professional activity:“My client does not really feel guilty. He doesn’t feel like he hurt anyone. On the contrary, there was a certain attachment to this relationship” he concludes.

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