Bernard Preynat, former priest sentenced in 2020 to five years in prison for sexual assault on minors

Now 76 years old, he had until then avoided incarceration for health reasons. He had to be presented to a judge and crushed in the stride.

Le Monde with AFP

The former priest Bernard Preynat, sentenced in 2020 to five years in prison for sexual assault on minors between 1971 and 1991 in the diocese of Lyon, was arrested, Wednesday, November 17, in the Loire in execution From his sentence, learned the France-Press (AFP) agency of a police source. The former priest, today aged 76, who had until then avoided the incarceration for reasons of health, had to be presented to a judge and imprisoned in the wake, said this source, confirming information from M6 .

“It’s a sentence that is brought to execution,” said Frédéric Doyez at AFP M

Long judicial fight

Six years after the first complaints filed in 2015 by former Scouts abused at the time by the chaplain of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon (Rhône), this announcement had closed a long judicial combat that put on The saddle The Church of France and its highest dignitary, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, pointed for their silence.

At his trial in March 2020, the Prosecure had accused the former chaplain to have “broken” the lives of young scouts and to have “served the silence of the parents and silence of the Church” to multiply His abuses. One of the lawyers of the civil parties had estimated the number of aggression between 3,000 and 4,000.

Hold in duties by the diocese of Lyon until the fall of 2015 while his actions had been known for a long time, Bernard Preynat had sorry for forgiveness to the nine victims come to show their sufferings. Many others could not file a complaint because of the prescription. Sentenced at first instance in 2019 for his silences on the case, M gr barbarin, then, been relaxed on appeal but resigned from his functions of Archbishop of Lyon.

/Media reports.