The Noirétable couple suspected of violence and sexual assault on foster children was brought before a judge and remanded in custody this Friday, July 1. The facts would have taken place between 2015 and 2022 within their place of residence black woods, approved by the Department of the Loire to accommodate children and adolescents.
It was former major boarders who sounded the alarm by calling 119, the number of the national helpline for children at risk. They denounced “the ill-treatment inflicted on minors in general, and acts of rape and sexual assault and abuse by the husband of the couple of owners”, indicates the public prosecutor of Saint-Étienne David Charmatz in a press release.
The nine people who were entrusted to the couple at the time of the alert were removed from the place of residence by the child protection services of the Loire departmental council on June 2, then distributed among four other departments.
About fifteen boarders or ex-boarders auditioned
No less than 15 residents and ex-residents were heard by the investigators during the month of June. The couple were taken into custody on Wednesday, June 29. After two days of hearings, the 50-year-old man and the 47-year-old woman were charged and remanded in custody.
The husband, who denies the facts, is prosecuted for rape and sexual assault per person having authority over four victims, three minors and an ex-resident still housed in this place and who was an adult at the time of the denounced rapes, sexual assaults by person having authority over two other minors and habitual violence against minors aged 15 years. Most of the fifteen residents and ex-residents of the place of residence who could be heard denounced ill-treatment regularly inflicted.
The woman was indicted on the sole count of non-denunciation of ill-treatment, deprivation, assault or sexual abuse inflicted on a minor. “She was also placed under a warrant of committal, mainly to shield minors from any influence during the time of the investigation, as many investigations remain to be carried out”, specifies the parquet floor which adds that “other revelations concerning the living conditions and, more generally, the functioning of this authorized living space, will give rise to another investigation.