After nine hours of deliberation, the verdict fell, this Friday at the start of the evening.
The Assize Court for Minors in Essonne convicted seven men of gang rape.
The victim was 17 years old at the time.
Three other men were condemned for complicity and a last for not having knowingly prevented this crime.
The sentences handed down range from two years in prison, including six months suspended, to seven years in prison.
Seven warrants of committal were also issued.
The convicts have ten days to appeal this decision.
For fifteen days, behind closed doors, the Assize Court of Essonne studied this file, almost ten years old.
At the time, in May 2013, all the protagonists were minors.
The defendants, sentenced on Friday, are all over 16 years old.
Ten others, also implicated in this case were, on the other hand, under 16 years old, and are referred to the juvenile court for gang rape, complicity or for having voluntarily abstained from having prevented this crime.
They should be tried next year.
In public toilets
At the time of the events, Inès* was a year away from coming of age.
For several months, she had been talking on social networks with a young man, responding to the nickname of Dixon.
To make their meeting a reality, they meet at Pierre Park, in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne), a place frequented and known to the inhabitants.
The two teenagers walk around quietly, before being bothered by a group of young people.
They then find refuge in the public toilets, where they exchange their first kiss.
This beginning of romance actually turns out to be the beginning of a long nightmare for Inès.
The intruders have followed them and are knocking heavily on the door.
Dixon claims he opened up to them under pressure, then was told to leave.
Thus leaving Inès alone with this gang of young people, who, in turn, rape the young woman.
They were about “twenty”, she confided, the next day, to the agents of the PMI (Maternal and Child Protection) of Morsang-sur-Orge (Essonne).
In tears and supported by three friends, the teenager had the courage to speak.
A horrifying tale
She describes a horrifying story, where a queue forms to be able to abuse her, where laughter and insults resound, where her tears and her terrorized gaze are not taken into account, where we call each other and sends SMS to share this "easy girl", where you masturbate while waiting your turn.
Where Dixon will return, not to help her but to take advantage of her "like his buddies", where his efforts to get out of there are in vain... Until she finds a fault and the strength in the face of the "little ones", about 14 years old, who will then chase her to the bus stop to demand a sexual relationship.
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The investigations carried out by the police officers of the departmental security of Essonne, and in particular the telephone investigations, will lead to the arrest of twenty-one young people.
A local band, nicknamed the MAG (Mafia African Ghetto), very involved in inter-district brawls at the time.
During their hearings, the majority of the respondents had ended up recognizing consented reports, confronted with DNA expertise.
At the dawn of the opening of the trial, some lawyers had regretted the delay in the proceedings, of almost ten years, which made this case "a legal scandal both for the defendants and for the victim, denounced Me Sarah Mauger-Poliak, lawyer for one of the defendants.
Everyone has now changed their lives.
Some, not all, having never again made themselves known to the courts or the police.
(*)
The first name has been changed