a priest from the diocese of Evreux indicted for attempted sexual assault on a minor

A priest from the diocese of Evreux has been indicted for attempted sexual assault on a minor and placed under judicial supervision, the public prosecutor of Evreux, Rémi Coutin, announced on Friday April 7. The investigation began on February 20 after a report from the Bishop of Évreux. A 21-year-old young man had confided in January to another priest about inappropriate behavior that the priest had had towards him.

Heard by the gendarmes, the young man reported an episode that occurred when he was 13 years old in the family vacation home where the priest was invited. He asserts that the priest had given him “tickling” under his t-shirt and had “laid his head on his stomach”which had it “made uncomfortable”according to the prosecutor.

The priest disputes the facts

Then in August 2019, during a holiday camp in Vendée, the young man slept in the same room as the priest. “Twice, during two different nights, he says that the father was masturbating and that he tried to touch his sex”, clarified Rémi Coutin. One of the young man’s brothers also reported facts “roughly similar” during a summer camp in 2006.

During his police custody, the priest, born in 1968, disputed the facts. The prosecutor pointed out that the indictment only concerned “the facts reported by the youngest of the victims”, because “the older facts seemed to us to be prescribed”.

The bishop of Évreux, Christian Nourrichard, for his part announced the opening of a canonical preliminary investigation, entrusted to the vice-official of the national canonical criminal court. “As a precaution and pending the decisions of state justice and then canonical justice, I have issued a suspensive decree which prohibits him from celebrating any sacrament and sacramentals and from having any contact with minors”added Christian Nourrichard.