A midwife man was sentenced Friday evening to 12 years in prison by the Hérault criminal court for 11 rapes and sexual assault on female patients.
The attorney general had requested 20 years of criminal imprisonment, the maximum penalty in this case.
Read also: Belgium: a gynecologist sentenced to four years in prison for the rape of a patient
“Under the guise of familiarity, familiarity, this man broke his word he owed to his patients. He made victims of them, locked in their guilt. He did not hesitate to take advantage of vulnerable women, pregnant or in the middle of the baby blues who came to consult for that, ”
Albert Cantinol denounced.
“You said 'I loved them all.'
But that's the problem, what did you adore sir? ”
, the magistrate got angry.
Judged since Wednesday for
"rapes committed by a person abusing the authority conferred on him by his function"
, Lionel Charvin, 49, was accused of having imposed on patients between 2013 and 2016 acts of a sexual nature - in particular
" massages "
of the clitoris, perineum and breasts and digital penetrations of the vagina - under cover of medical procedures during preparation for childbirth or post-natal follow-up.
“Would Lionel Charvin be judged if he had been a woman? As a man midwife, did he have fewer rights than a woman midwife? "
, for his part questioned in defense Me Maryse Pechevis.
“Since 2001, she pleaded, he has had to deal with the pregnancies and deliveries of 2,500 women.
For him, the sexual is an organ, just like the bladder.
He doesn't see it any other way.
Her only goal was to want to rebuild these women and their well-being, ”
she said.
“I am stunned and I can't speak anymore.
And I want to apologize once again to my patients, ”
said the accused before the court - composed of five professional magistrates - withdraws to deliberate.
Several patients said they were
"
paralyzed
"
or
"paralyzed"
during the rapes and did not dare to say anything at first while suffering long-term psychological consequences.
All spoke of a “trust” betrayed while in a time of great vulnerability.
During the examination on the merits on Friday, the accused answered the questions of the president and the lawyers with ambiguity:
“I heard of course the suffering of the patients and I am sorry.
I have some responsibility for this suffering but at no time was it intentional on my part.
I loved these patients ”.
A psychiatrist described as
"an aggressor of opportunity who acts by the diversion of the confidence placed in him"
this man whose childhood was marked by violence and alcoholism of his father and several incest.
The expert described his personality as
"perverse".
The midwife, father of three children, practiced the professional activity of midwife coupled with a specialty in haptonomy, as a liberal in a Montpellier office, and as an employee in the St Roch clinic in Montpellier until 2016 Heard as an expert, the gynecologist and haptonome Denise Bouchut recalled the basics of this practice on Wednesday:
“in haptonomy, the patient is never naked, we never touch the breasts, we do not massage, we do not insert not the fingers in the vagina of the patient ”
, and the presence of the father is essential, she enumerated.
