This “emblematic” affair, according to child protection associations, had led to the law of April 2021 setting a non-consent threshold at 15 years.
Le Monde with AFP
The case had given rise to a debate on the non-consent of minors. A 33-year-old man was sentenced on Friday November 4 in Pontoise (Val-d’Oise) to eight years in prison for having raped an 11-year-old girl in 2017, whom he had considered “consenting”. “The Court considers that the sexual acts have been committed by moral constraint and by surprise,” said the president of the criminal court, made up of five professional judges, without popular jury.
The verdict was pronounced in public. But the three days of hearing had held behind closed doors.
The victim, at “11 years and 10 months [at the time of the facts] did not present sufficient maturity or discernment to consent to sexual relations,” argued the president of the court, after a deliberation of more than three hours.
Serinte S. “abused the vulnerability” of the victim “to achieve the immediate satisfaction of [his] desires and [his] sexual excitement” and could not ignore the age of the child. Despite its physical appearance, “its real age is very quickly perceptible when you exchange with it,” said the magistrate.
Decognized of “rape on a minor”, Serinte S. was sentenced to eight years in prison with a warrant, a decision slightly below the requisitions. He is also forbidden to work with children for ten years.
Free compared, the one who had not done a pre -trial detention remained without reaction during the verdict. He then had to be imprisoned. At the other end of the room, the victim remained stoic, surrounded by his parents and his psychologist.
Initial prosecution for “sexual attack”
This “emblematic” affair, according to child protection associations, had led to the law of April 2021 setting a non-consent threshold at 15 years. The text had the support of the government, which had committed to develop the law in the wake of the collective awareness caused by the release of Camille Kouchner La Familia Grande (threshold). In this work, she recounts incest that her twin brother would have suffered in adolescence. Under the terms of this new law, below 15 years, any sexual penetration committed by an adult will be automatically considered to be rape, a crime punished with twenty years of imprisonment. Same thing for incest, if he is committed on a minor under the age of 18 by a person in the family circle, but also a partner or a Pacsé companion.
The text had been the subject of delicate arbitrations. A provision, nicknamed “Romeo and Juliet”, had been developed to avoid penalizing the “teenage loves” freely granted. This clause provides that the sanctions only apply if “the age difference between the middle finger and the minor [under 15] is at least five years”.
Serinte S. was judged according to the old law, the more severe criminal law not being retroactive.
On April 24, 2017, the college student sits in a park near her home, in Montmagny (Val-d’Oise). She chats with a 28 -year -old man, who already tackled her two weeks earlier. He invites her to follow her in her building. In a stairwell, at the request of the man, she gives him a blowjob. Then in his apartment a relationship with vaginal penetration takes place. Once out, the child calls his mother and tells him that he was raped.
The initial prosecution, for “sexual attack”, had aroused the ire of feminist associations and child protection. An instruction had finally been opened.
