Paris court acquits six in paedophilia case

A Paris appeals court today overturned the convictions of six people convicted of paedophilia after a contrite public prosecutor said the case was riddled with errors and called for the defendants to be acquitted.

The extraordinary move prompted the defence to forgo its closing arguments late yesterday.

The six defendants, who always claimed their innocence, broke into tears of joy and hugged each other after the verdict was announced.

Yves Bot, the prosecutor in charge of the Paris appeals court, took the highly unusual step of apologising to the defendants even before the verdict - revealing the depth of embarrassment over a case that exposed shortcomings in the French justice system.

“We must make sure this never happens again,” Bot said.

In July 2004, a court in Saint-Omer, northern France, convicted 10 out of 17 defendants on paedophilia charges relating to the abuse of 18 children between 1995 and 2000.

Two couples admitted raping their children. The six who appealed denied the offences but were subsequently convicted. Seven others, who were acquitted, had consistently denied any role in the sex scandal.

The accusations shattered several lives. One defendant committed suicide behind bars, and others lost custody of their children. Dominique Perben, the justice minister at the time, issued an apology for judicial errors in the case.

Much of the trial in Saint-Omer hinged on the testimony of Myriam Delay, who allowed the abuse to take place in the apartment she shared with her husband in a housing project in Outreau, close to the Belgian border.

Delay stunned the court when she broke down in tears and said she had wrongly accused 13 defendants. She later reversed her testimony and said her initial accusations had been true.

In a letter submitted to the appeals court by prosecutors at the start of the second trial, Thierry Delay, the husband of Myriam, said all six of the appellants were innocent.

He has not appealed the 20-year sentence he received for his own role in the child sex ring.

Public prosecutor Yves Jannier, in his closing arguments yesterday, said the case was riddled with small mistakes and carelessness.

“I am not here to support far-fetched accusations,” he said.

“I am not here to have innocents convicted.”