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From Monday to Friday, nineteen people are being tried at the Châteauroux court for acts of violence and mistreatment of children in care

This is a case “out of the ordinary in its scale” but revealing of the “considerable and recurring deficiencies of the child welfare system” (ASE), summarizes the lawyer Jean Sannier. He defends the association Innocence en danger and at least five victims in the trial of nineteen people accused of mistreating around twenty children in care, which opens Monday in Châteauroux (Indre).

Among these defendants, Julien M. and Bruno C. have most of the accusations of violence against them. Between 2013 and 2017, dozens of children followed by social services, perhaps up to a hundred, were sent to the association “Enfance et Bien être” created by Julien M., although the latter did not have the required approval to take care of minors without families. Three years earlier, Julien M.’s parents, Colette M. and Antoine M., lost their right to take in these young people after the father was convicted of sexual assaults on children in care “but they will continue to take care of them through their son’s association”, assures Jean Sannier.

Other host families in Indre , Creuse and Haute-Vienne are also assisting Julien M., also completely illegally, Radio France revealed last September. People “in trouble” who serve as subcontractors for Julien M.’s company, according to one of the defendants who spoke to Le Parisien .

Unbearable violence

Julien M., is quickly joined by a certain Bruno C. The children are sent by the ASE of the Nord department to the structure supposedly non-profit. The two men “will take advantage of this windfall to pour out their violence on these children, kicking, punching, whipping, putting their heads in the toilet and flushing,” says the lawyer. Crooked doctors or false prescriptions allowed them to heavily medicate the young people, with “horse drugs,” adds the lawyer.

“Julien spoke to us very badly, he said: “I’m going to break your knees…” I was so scared that at night I didn’t dare go downstairs to go to the toilet, I would do it on myself,” Karl, now 19, told Le Parisien . Another young man, Antoine, remembers being “drowned in the pool” to the point of feeling himself “going away”, on the verge of “losing consciousness”. Mathias, 22, talks about whiplashes but also particularly humiliating scenes. Julien M. “put his fingers under my throat, he tried to lift me up. He pulled down my pants which I immediately pulled up. Then he pulled down his pants before pissing on me”, he told Radio France. Facts that the two friends did not contest before the investigators.

It was through Mathias that the case finally broke, putting an end to the ordeal of these dozens of suffering young people, “abandoned by their parents, then abandoned by the justice system”, denounces Me Sannier. In 2017, when he was not yet 15 years old, Mathias was taken to the Limoges University Hospital by Julien M. who pretended to have fallen off his bike. The teenager remained in a coma for six days before waking up and remembers being hit as if “his head was a football”, reports his counsel. He begged not to be entrusted again to the man who had dropped him off. Alerted, the medical staff expressed their reservations to the authorities who opened an investigation. It was the beginning of the end for these traumatized young people, most of whom are now adults and scattered across France. But it would take seven years for a trial that some of them could not even afford to attend. Although nineteen victims have been identified, only half will come to the trial. This is why the lawyer has opened a Leetchi kitty , allowing these young people to travel to Châteauroux for four days and testify in court.

Major absentees at the trial

During these seven years of abuse, Julien M. and Bruno C. pocketed at least 630,000 euros according to the procedure, a sum “closer to a million”, according to Jean Sannier’s calculations. Money paid directly by the ASE du Nord , even though it had been alerted on at least four occasions of the abuse suffered. “The ASE was perfectly aware of the conditions in which these children were being cared for, and deliberately did not lift a finger”, complains one of the defence lawyers interviewed by Radio France. However, the ASE du Nord has not been summoned to appear or to testify, Jean Sannier is surprised, according to whom “by ignoring, by not wanting to listen, it allowed this violence, what the two defendants called ‘reframing'”. Another misunderstanding: the non-prosecution of certain facts such as “forced labour of minors” or ”  sexual violence  “. Two questions that should occupy the debates in the courtroom of the Châteauroux criminal court.

Placing children without being too demanding about the destination, “this is unfortunately not exceptional”, according to Françoise de Gouville, director of prevention and social development for the Indre department. “Many large departments that lack places tend to send the children for whom they are responsible to other departments without being sufficiently vigilant and respectful of the regulations”, she explains to Radio France.

The dramatic case for these children ultimately reveals the “well-known endemic” flaws in the child welfare system, believes Jean Sannier. These placements in unapproved structures or families “are extremely frequent”, also concedes Kim Reuflet of the Magistrates’ Union to Radio France, while the number of children to be placed increases while the number of places continues to decrease.