A man was sentenced to seven years in prison on appeal for raping an eleven-year-old girl after being acquitted. His trial had sparked a debate about the age of sexual consent.
His acquittal had fueled the debate on the establishment of a minimum age of consent to a sexual act: a thirty-year-old was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping an eleven-year-old girl. learned Tuesday, November 27 from judicial source.
One year after the acquittal pronounced by the assize court of Seine-et-Marne, the Assize Court of Paris ruled on November 7 that this man was guilty and attached to his imprisonment an inscription on the sex offender file, said this source.
In 2017, the first Assize Court found that the elements of rape (coercion, threat, violence and surprise) were not established. The public prosecutor, who had required eight years of imprisonment, had appealed.
The facts went back to August 2009, when the pre-teen had followed the accused, 22 years old at the time, in a park. Her family had learned of the facts when they discovered her pregnancy in 2010. The child had been placed in foster care.
The young man has always maintained that the relationship was granted.
"Presumption of non-consent"
This acquittal occurred when a similar case, between a 28-year-old man and an eleven-year-old girl, sparked controversy in Val-d'Oise: the Pontoise public prosecutor's office had decided to prosecute him for "sexual abuse" - qualification involving the consent of the minor- and not for "rape" . A judicial inquiry for rape was subsequently opened.
Many voices had risen to ask for a "presumption of non-consent," which would regard any penetration of a minor under the age of 15 as a rape.
Believing that such automaticity might be rejected by the Constitutional Council, the executive finally abandoned the idea, prompting criticism from associations and professionals in the field of child protection.
The law against sexual and gender-based violence, adopted this summer, specifies that when the facts are committed on a minor, up to fifteen years, "the moral constraint or the surprise are characterized by the abuse of the vulnerability of the victim does not not having the necessary discernment for these acts " .