36-year-old magician tried for rape and assault on 27 children

• An extraordinary trial opens on September 30 before the Ille-et-Vilaine minors' assize court for acts of rape and sexual assault on 27 children.

• The accused is a 36-year-old magician who used to befriend parents before abusing children.

• Already convicted for similar acts in 2011, the accused continued his actions without the parents suspecting a thing.

  One complaint, however, was ignored.

“It's so unthinkable, surreal.

I still have a hard time believing that to be true.

On the eve of the start of the trial before the Assize Court of Ille-et-Vilaine, Sandra is very anxious.

For five years and the revelations of touching of which her two children have been victims, this mother living near Rennes has still not understood how the one who was "his friend, almost a brother" was in fact a liar.

From Friday, Sébastien C. (

) will be sitting alone in the box to respond to the multiple acts of rape and sexual assault on minors of which he is accused.

This 36-year-old magician is at the heart of an extraordinary child crime case involving 27 children.

For more than fifteen years, these boys and girls who were between the ages of 3 and 15 at the time of the events have been abused by a man described by all those close to him as "adorable".

A man who had already been sentenced in 2011 for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl while he was a facilitator in an outdoor center in Côtes-d'Armor.

But who had been able to continue to practice with minors for years, arousing the cold anger of the parents of the victims.

His modus operandi was the same each time.

Win the trust of parents, many of whom have become friends, in order to get close to the children to abuse them.

Twenty seven.

The number of victims is blood-curdling.

But it has already been proven that they are more numerous, since other facts will be judged after this trial at the assizes which will last fifteen days.

Mute for years, all these children finally spoke when their parents questioned them about the actions of Sébastien C. In November 2017, the magician took his phone to alert some of his friends that he was going to have to go to school. jail.

He had even told some of the atrocities committed on their children, before pushing the doors of the Rennes police station to deliver his awful truth.

Before that, he had taken the time to destroy his compromising computer files.

For several hours, he then explained his actions to investigators from the vice squad.

He had given names of victims too.

His little sister, his cousins, his nieces, the children of his closest friends.

He was close to the parents before abusing the children

During his multiple interrogations, the respondent had described "a modus operandi" identical each time.

After getting closer to the parents, he was invited to sleep over, even went on vacation with them.

"He was like a member of the family," recalls a mother.

“He interfered in their lives, put his vigilance to sleep.

My client introduced him to her friends, to their children.

Today, she wants it terribly.

She has the impression of having been deceived, ”book Me Agnès Cœtmeur, lawyer for one of the victims.

Skilled manipulator of balloons, he amazed the youngest by sculpting them.

Each time, the accused spent a lot of time with the children in order to gain their trust.

He gave them presents.

And before each acting out, he lent them his phone, as if to distract them.

The children were then in “a state of hypnotic dissociation”, according to a psychologist.

That's when he acted.

Caresses, masturbation, hands slipped under the clothes of girls and boys.

When he slept at night, he regularly attempted vaginal or anal digital penetration.

Some children were crying, saying it hurt them a lot.

But he promised them that they would become their assistant for the magic tricks.

The man was also filming the naked children with his phone.

He sometimes showed pictures of his other victims,

making the children believe that what they were experiencing was "normal".

“I was too young, I didn't understand what was going on, if it was good or bad,” testifies a victim, now an adult.

Like her, most children said nothing to their parents for fear of being scolded or punished, as if they had done something stupid.

The accused, who was their friend at the time, hammered home that this secret had to be kept well.

Almost all of them did.

hammered at them that this secret had to be well kept.

Almost all of them did.

hammered at them that this secret had to be well kept.

Almost all of them did.

A complaint filed in 2014 but never processed

The horror could have ended in 2014 if the complaint filed by a mother for touching her 3 and a half year old daughter had been heard.

While he was decorating an apartment for a birthday, Sébastien C. had locked himself with a little girl in the bathroom.

Children had seen him and alerted the parents that the magician had kissed the very young victim on the mouth.

Questioned, the little girl had explained that the magician had rubbed her sex, passing his hand under her clothes.

He had touched her buttocks too.

When she is heard by the police, the child will say nothing.

His mother, she will testify, delivering the business card of the respondent.

The magician, though on probation with his 2011 conviction, will not even be heard.

It will take almost four years for the file to resurface.

“During these four years, he wreaked havoc everywhere.

There was a huge miss from the police, ”slips, bitter, a lawyer.

Often on the roads, the magician made victims everywhere.

In Brittany, where he lived for a long time, but also in the Vosges, where he went on vacation, in Deux-Sèvres and even in Switzerland and the United Kingdom where he left as a camp leader.

At the time of his brother's conviction, the defendant's sister had nevertheless had the courage to speak to their father about it.

She had mentioned the touching suffered by her brother when she was only 6 or 7 years old, also talking about rape, fellatio.

She had said nothing at the time "because she thought it was normal," she told investigators.

At the time, his father had chased his son from the home and had forbidden him to return, under penalty of filing a complaint.

He was far from imagining that his son would attack other children.

To the investigators, the magician will explain that he considers himself "unbalanced" because of his attraction to young children.

He will speak of "impulses" when taking action.

His conviction for sexual assault had not changed his orientations.

Worse, she seemed to have reinforced them.

While his relatives had "not noticed anything" for years, they began to see their friend "become very tactile".

The latter even began to make more and more pedophile jokes.

When he was in his twenties and studying at the University of Rennes, the accused had incited a 13-year-old girl whom he had raped to denounce him.

He was his friend.

He had advised him to file a complaint to "bring him down".

The young girl, already psychologically fragile, had not done so.

Since then, she has multiplied suicide attempts.

The magician will end up confiding in a friend, known for scams, whom he rubbed shoulders with in Nice.

He had mentioned his attraction to children, before admitting to having already taken action.

"He wasn't looking for a mate.

He said he wanted women who wear 32 or 34, without buttocks, shapes or breasts, ”she explained to investigators.

It was this friend who asked him to give himself up to the police, which he ended up accepting in November 2017. That day, Sébastien C. had warned some relatives that they would not see him for a while. , even talking about prison.

He then unpacked his story to the police, evoking two rapes by a stranger of which he would have been the victim in a campsite when he was 6 years old.

He had never mentioned it.

He then gave several names of his victims who had to be contacted.

Then others joined.

Then others, then others.

Placed in pre-trial detention since November 2017, Sébastien C. faces a twenty-year prison sentence.

The trial, which will be held behind closed doors, is expected to last fifteen days.

Company

Between rape, slavery and torture, plunged into the "hell of decor" of the porn industry

Justice

Rennes: Confused by his DNA, an alleged serial rapist tried before the assizes

Why 20 Minutes does not give a name

To deal with this trial,

will only mention the first name of the accused.

A choice assumed to protect the identity of the victims of this file.

• Justice

• reindeer

• Brittany

• child crime

• Child

• Rape

• sexual assault

• assize court

• Magic