Child abuse trial's collapse pitches French justice system into crisis

[emad]

The Independent

By John Lichfield in Paris
20 May 2004

<snip>

The French justice system was in disgrace yesterday after the spectacular collapse of a high-profile trial in which 17 people, including a priest and a property lawyer, were charged with paedophile and bestial acts. Two of the accused - the mothers of six of the alleged child victims - abruptly admitted to a court in Saint Omer, near Boulogne, on Tuesday night that they had lied about the involvement of almost all the other defendants.

"I lied about everything," said one of the women, Myriam Delay, 37, interrupting the proceedings. "I am a sick woman and a liar ... Roselyne you did nothing. M. Godard, he too did nothing. David Brunet the same. Karine, you did nothing ..." One by one she exculpated the other defendants, who had been accused by herself and her four children of being involved in an elaborate child-prostitution ring, including among other things forcing children to perform sexual acts with dogs. Her neighbour, Aurélie Grenon, then withdrew her identical accusations.

One of the accused, Alain Marécaux, a court bailiff and property lawyer, 44, shouted: "I've lost everything. They stole my children. Killed my mother." Several of those cleared, including M. Marécaux, had spent two and a half years in jail. One accused man had committed suicide. Two others, including the priest, Father Dominique Wiel, had been on hunger strike in prison to protest their innocence. Marriages have broken up. Jobs had been lost. The children of what now appear to be wholly innocent people have been placed in care (one of whom tried to commit suicide at the start of the trial).

"This is a judicial Chernobyl... a surrealist folly," said Maître Hubert Delarue, lawyer for M. Marécaux. "Innocent men and women have been allowed to rot in jail, in a state of despair." Le Monde described the four-year investigation and trial as a "voyage into the country of judicial horrors". After ignoring sexually assaulted children for too long, the newspaper said, France's judicial system had over-compensated by treating all accusations by children as "sacred".
<snip>
More:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=522972

[saigon68]

1. ITS LIKE CODDLING WAR CRIMINAL TROOPS HERE

Its for the children

[OneBlueSky]

2. ever get the feeling that we're living in a Salvador Dali painting? n/t

.

[htuttle]

3. I've been feeling like it was a painting by Hieronymus Bosch

:shrug:

[truthspeaker]

4. this was happening in the US ten years ago

can't remember the names of the cases, but one involved a day-care center in Washington. Kids were coached to make bizarre claims about secret tunnels and satanic rituals; adults had their careers ruined and some spend time in jail.

[saigon68]

7. McMARTIN" RITUAL ABUSE CASES IN MANHATTAN BEACH, CA

"McMartin" was one of the first Multi-Victim Multi Offender (MVMO) child abuse cases. 2,3 It lasted six years -- the longest US criminal trial in history. At a cost to the state of $15 million, it was also the most expensive. No convictions were obtained. The main evidence of abuse was based on what the children testified were memories of repeated, sadistic, ritual molestation. Years later, child psychologists realized that such memories can be easily implanted in children's minds by the interview techniques which were used at the time. Since psychologists and police investigators have changed their methods of interrogating young children, no more MVMO cases have surfaced in the U.S. and Canada. The children's testimony was supported by medical tests, which were believed at the time to be accurate. Years later, they were found to be useless.

The hoax adversely affected the lives of hundreds of children, who are now young adults. It has become the most famous MVMO case of its type. Many feminists and others still believe that the children were subjected to horrendous abuse at McMartin.


http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_mcmar.htm

[Tempest]

5. Bakersfield, California

Several high profile cases were tried in the 1980's and innocent people were sent to prison.

All of the cases were thrown out, or retried and the the accused found innocent after the "victims" recanted their testimony. The "victims" accused the prosecutor's office of forcing them to lie on the stand.

Many of the innocent spent 20+ years in prison before being released.

A book about the fiasco, Mean Justice, exposed the whole mess.

The sister of one of the men imprisoned was a friend of mine. She died of a brain tumor less than a year after her brother was released from prison after spending 22 years there. She lost 22 years of her family life because of the U.S. legal system.

[David__77]

6. The system needs serious reform.

Innocent people are charged with these crimes and ruined, without the ability to confront their accusers and on the flimsiest of "evidence."

[othermeans]

8. I believe it was the McMartin pre-school case

Also in San Diego there was a case of a young man who taught at Sunday
school whose only crime was he was born with a birth defect that caused him to look different. Same stories though tunnels, baby sacrifice, animal torture.

[Jacobin]

9. Wow.

Pendulum will now swing back to disbelieving children in sex abuse cases, at least in France for a while.

So sad.