Seven years in prison required for police officer accused of rape in court jails

Seven years of imprisonment were required on Wednesday March 17 at the Assises du Var against a police officer prosecuted for rape and sexual harassment against detainees in his custody, as head of jails, at the Toulon court between 2014 and 2018.

Advocate General Bernard Marchal in particular swept away the idea that one of the victims could have tempted the accused: “She is not teasing, she wants to arouse sympathy, she is like that.

She praises the police but that's not why she's going to give them all a fellatio, ”he thundered, criticizing the behavior of the policeman.

"And here is this woman whom we are going to be told is consenting?" He asked himself.

Calling to "sanction" these "criminal acts", the magistrate - also prosecutor of Toulon - however demanded "a comprehensive sentence which allows the accused, given the pre-trial detention already carried out, to be able to claim an adjustment in a period of less than one year ”.

For these facts, eight in total including two criminals, with five identified victims, Claude Mardi, 61, risks in theory twenty years of imprisonment because of his status as a police officer.

Struck off the police, he has been in pre-trial detention since July 2018.

The attorney general said he took into account, in his requisitions, the apologies presented Tuesday by the accused to one of the rape victims, a 39-year-old woman.

She testified to having performed, in June 2018, a fellatio on Claude Mardi in exchange for the possibility of making a phone call to her daughter before being placed in detention in Marseille.

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Another rape victim, a transsexual of Brazilian nationality, did not appear at the hearing.

His DNA had been found during IGPN investigations in the toilets reserved for the staff of the Toulon court jails, where the first rape had taken place.

The accused, who recognizes fellatio with the first inmate, denies on the other hand this second rape.

The other three victims of acts, qualified this time as sexual harassment, came forward following a standard letter addressed to 190 women who passed through the jails of the court between 2014 and 2018. One of them described the sexual blackmail to which she had been subjected, Claude Mardi demanding, according to her, a sexual favor in exchange for the possibility of smoking a cigarette.

Claude Mardi also refutes these accusations.

The verdict is expected to be delivered Wednesday evening.