10 people jailed for gang rape of children

A PAEDOPHILIA trial that stunned France with lurid accounts of parents who loaned their children out for sex ended yesterday with 10 of 17 defendants convicted.

Thierry and Myriam Delay, an unemployed couple at the centre of the scandal, were sentenced to terms of 20 and 15 years respectively for multiple counts of rape and handing over their own four sons to friends and neighbours for sex.

Thierry, 40, was found guilty of raping nine children and sexually assaulting six others. Myriam, 37, was convicted of raping seven children, pimping her four boys and sexually assaulting another 10.

France has been riveted and shocked by the trial, which involved allegations of bestiality and gang rapes of 18 children - aged as young as three - between 1995 and 2000. The controversial case lead to questions about the fairness of the justice system.

The Delays’ neighbours in the northern town of Outreau, David Delplanque and Aurelie Grenon, received sentences of six and four years on similar charges while priest Dominique Wiel got seven years.

Five other defendants also received prison or suspended sentences while seven of the accused were acquitted.

The 17 defendants, aged 24 to 67, went on trial nearly two months ago for the gang rape over a five-year period of 18 children - aged three to 12 at the time - in Outreau, outside the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Some of them had stood accused of committing torture and barbaric acts during the alleged sex sessions that took place in the Delay apartment in a rundown housing block, but those charges were not proven.

The emotional trial saw Myriam Delay first exonerating 13 of her co-accused in a tearful confession - only to reverse less than a week later, saying her initial claims were true.

“My children did not lie. I was there and I saw it all. It is not me who has destroyed the life of those who are accused here. It is they who have destroyed the life of my children,” she said.

One of the accused in the Outreau affair committed suicide in prison before the case came to trial. Many of the others have lost their jobs and their children have been taken into foster care.

Bailiff Alain Marecaux, handed an 18-month suspended sentence, and his estranged wife Odile - acquitted of all charges - separated in the aftermath of the scandal, and Odile lost custody of her three children. One of their sons was hospitalised after trying to kill himself by swallowing razor blades.

Questions were raised throughout the investigation and the trial about the testimony of the children, which was riddled with inconsistencies. Those acquitted, who vehemently denied any involvement in the sex scandal from the start, were left wondering how to repair their shattered lives, and how the country's justice system could have failed them so miserably.

“This case proves the legal system is on its last legs, as we have now seen the total negation of any presumption of innocence,” Hubert Delarue, the lawyer for Alain Marecaux, said in May.