Court looks to unravel French abuse case

A French court trying 66 adults for their alleged roles in a paedophilia network involving dozens of children and babies begins examining this week how the abuse thrived and escaped the scrutiny of social workers.

The court in Angers, 160 miles south of Paris, will hear details of the police investigation that uncovered the abuse and then listen to evidence from social workers who had been in contact with the families on a council estate.

The trial, which began last month and is expected to end in July, has been examining the personalities of the defendants, most of them family and friends. A grim portrait of family torment, in some cases passed on from generation to generation, has emerged.

Investigators say 45 children – between the ages of six months and 14 years - were abused by their parents or their acquaintances from 1999 to 2002, in some cases in exchange for small amounts of money, food, cigarettes or alcohol.

Beginning with suspicions that a known paedophile, Eric J, had become a repeat offender, a fastidious police investigation unravelled the network and exposed the abuse that social workers had failed to notice.

Defendants in the case are not being identified by their full names.

Most of the accused, some of whom are uneducated, were under the watch of social workers and receiving state aid.

Defence lawyers planned to point the finger at a failure of the system that allowed the abuses to go unspotted for nearly two years.

“I don’t understand how medical and social workers saw nothing when you know that 66 accused and 45 child victims were monitored by various services,” said Pascal Rouiller, lawyer for five leading defendants.

Filmed testimony from the children – who will not appear in court – is also to be heard, starting on April 12.