AFP, published Friday, April 15, 2022 at 2:45 p.m
A 48-year-old former Catholic priest was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the Saint-Denis de La Réunion Criminal Court on Thursday for raping and sexually assaulting a mother and her minor son.
This judgment is accompanied by a 5-year social court follow-up, a ban on contact for minors and the registration of perpetrators of sexual or violent crimes (Fijais) in the automated judicial file.
Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in prison.
The facts happened between 2013 and 2015 but were only uncovered in 2017 when a young student confided in the university chaplain and pointed out that he had been the victim of multiple sexual assaults by the Catholic priest who officiated in the Plaine des Palmistes, a village in the east of the island.
The young man was 14 when the assaults began and was an altar boy at the time.
During the investigation launched by the Saint-Denis prosecutor’s office, the young man’s mother revealed that she had also been sexually abused by the priest.
The minister, who has since been sacked, has “an extremely strong personality” and “an important influence on the faithful,” prosecutor Éric Tuffery said during his rape and sexual assault charges.
The accused admitted the facts at the end of his police custody by declaring the consent of the victims. He repeated this allegation before the criminal court.
At the end of the trial, Nicolas Normand, the former priest’s lawyer, stated that his client had no intention of appealing.
In January 2013, the former parish priest of Bras-Panon (in the east of the island) was found guilty of a series of assaults on a dozen boys between 1989 and 1995 and in 2009. He was sentenced to five years in prison.