Dino Scala, nicknamed the “rapist of the Sambre”invoked, on Friday June 10, a “hunting, predatory instinct”, to explain 30 years of rape and sexual assault, on the first day of his trial before the Assizes of the North. Calm and talkative on the stand, the accused admits having “committed sexual assaults and rapes”as he had done during the investigation, on “the majority of the facts”according to his lawyer.
At 61, he was appearing for 17 rapes, 12 attempted rapes and 27 assaults or attempted sexual assaults, committed against 56 victims between 1988 and 2018. “Did you feel strong?”asks a lawyer: “yes, strong, I was taking over”, he replies. To the president of the court who recalls that according to the personality survey, there is no “not particularly focused on sex”he throws : “yes, it’s weird”. “Apart from that (…) of what I was able to accomplish as misdeeds, I always had a normal life”adds this former worker and local football coach, father of five children from two marriages.
Meet in jail “psychiatrist, psychologist”, “allowed me to bring out all that I had, like anger and frustrations”, he develops, in front of a room where several dozen victims or relatives crowd. It evokes an adolescence, marked by “violence” intra-family, but also “suspicions, (…) on acts that my father would have committed on my sisters”. “In the family, I was the good for nothing”at school, “it was average”, “it was very complicated” also in private and professional life, he says.
But he does not express any regret, as pointed out, at the end of the hearing, by Maître Sandrine Billard, who represents two victims. “I had to be there, to see him, to confront him (…) but he doesn’t let anything show”also regrets Valérie, attacked in 1997. Another victim, Mélanie, attacked at 14 the same year, does not hope “the truth”but counts on the trial to “rebuild after”.
The sprawling investigation began at the end of 1996 with the complaint of rape, along a highway in Maubeuge, of a 28-year-old woman. Other assaults follow, almost always at dawn, in winter, usually on public roads. With the same modus operandi: the man grabs his victims from behind, strangles them with his forearm or a link, threatens them, often with a knife. Many will say they have “saw death”.
The culprit remains untraceable, until the attack on a teenager in February 2018 in Erquelinnes (Belgium). This time, CCTV captured a Peugeot 206. Its driver, Dino Scala, was arrested a few weeks later in Pont-sur-Sambre, to the amazement of those around him.