Versailles (AFP)
An athletics coach from a club in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines) was charged with rape and sexual harassment against seven young girls aged 16 to 18 at the time of the crime, it was said. learned Monday from the Versailles prosecutor's office.
The 42-year-old man, who worked at the West 78 Athletic Club (CAO78) in Saint-Germain, was indicted on Wednesday. He was left free and placed under judicial supervision said the prosecution, confirming information from the Parisian.
All the young girls who accuse him are athletes of the club or have gone there. They say they were abused between 2007 and 2019 by this trainer, also a former historical director of the CAO78.
If the lawyer for the suspect Me Charles Thuillier welcomed the opening of judicial information, "the only framework which allows him to defend himself", he recalled "the confusion which reigns in the presentation of the facts and the absence of material supporting the accusations ".
The coach, without denying the relations with these athletes, assures that they have always been agreed and denies having been a "guru" as some complainants may have said, according to his lawyer.
He was suspended from his sports-related activities by the prefecture of Yvelines on January 4 after a report from a former member of the club to a technical manager of the Ile-de-France Athletics League (LIFA) ).
This suspension ended on July 4 according to Me Thuillier and was not renewed. The judicial review of the trainer does not prohibit him from exercising his activity with adults but "he decided not to resume his activities out of respect for the athletes who accused him and for the procedure which is under way", said his lawyer.
The prefectural suspension order mentioned "shortcomings" on the part of the trainer, in particular "sharing a room with an athlete, sexual relations (including some with minors) imposed and obtained in the context of control psychological".
The affair had been revealed in the midst of the crisis in French sport, faced with the multiplication of revelations on cases of sexual violence in sport, especially in the world of figure skating.
© 2020 AFP