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Agnel case: the plaintiff's defense denounces "the malice" of "other aggressors"

2022-01-26T12:28:04.957Z


While several people have testified that they knew of the affair between the Olympic swimmer and the 13-year-old girl, the latter's lawyers maintain that her parents knew nothing about it.


She no longer wears a bathing suit.

Lawyer for N. Horter, the young woman now 19 years old who accuses Yannick Agnel of rape and sexual assault, Isabelle Rollet details the extent of the moral damage suffered by the complainant, who was 13 years old at the time of the events.

"

I'm sure there was never any consent

," explains Me. Rollet in

L'Equipe

.

She was a child at the level of civil status, but she was also a child in her body.

She was super thin, she had no awareness of her sexuality and what a woman's life is.

»

According to elements of the Radio France investigation unit, the facts took place between New Year's Eve 2016, the scene of a first kiss, and February 2016 in Thailand, where the Mulhouse Olympic Natation (MON) club, where the Olympic swimmer is fired, left for training before the deadline for the Rio 2016 Games. Sexual intercourse then took place in the room of the swimmer, then 24 years old.

"

I had my doubts about what was going on

," says a swimmer from MON, present on the spot.

But at the time, very few people seemed to know, and certainly not the parents of the victim, Lionel and Marjorie Horter, very important in the life of the club, and who were hosting Agnel in their home in preparation for the Games.

An affair quickly known… except for the parents

After several months of liaison, N. ends up freeing himself from Agnel's presence when the latter is at the Rio Olympics, where his career will end after refusing to compete with the relay.

A former swimmer told

France Info

that N. would have confided in and questioned the nature of her relationship with Agnel, in 2017. Little by little, "

everyone is

aware within the club

", says a former swimmer from the club

.

Read alsoThe fall of ex-swimmer Yannick Agnel, indicted for rape

"

The swimmers may have been aware

," argues Thomas Wetterer, N's other lawyer.

But the information did not go back to Lionel and Marjorie

Horter

who are part of the management.

Management

is an authoritarian figure

for these young people.

Many people question the parents' disbelief in the sexual assaults, especially since the swimmer lived under their roof.

The latter reveal during their hearing on July 15 that they only learned of these facts two weeks before their daughter's complaint, filed on July 2, 2021.

A means of pressure to settle a financial dispute?

BFM TV reports that critics of the Horter family see this complaint as family "

manipulation

" while the 2012 double Olympic champion is at the heart of a financial dispute with the Alsatian club, ordered to pay him 60,000 euros to settle a conflict involving on his last year of contract (the call is scheduled for March 2022). Different sources agree on a sentence from Franck Horter, club boss and Lionel's brother, which embellishes the thesis with facts known to the club and therefore potentially used as a means of pressure on Agnel: "

he (Agnel) would do better to 'accept a conciliation because we have a file on him and my niece

'. In

L'Equipe

, Me Rollet denounces these external pressures: "

in her mind, when she reads that her parents would not have reported the facts, it translates to are my parents going to prison?

It's odious (...) Does N. need to have other sneaky, anonymous, malicious aggressors, who come to pollute his life, to pollute this business and to scare him?

It is inconceivable malevolence.

You don't settle accounts like that."

“There is currently no evidence that the parents were aware,”

the Mulhouse prosecutor

told

Radio France .

LiveAgnel case: the ex-swimmer "recognizes the materiality of the facts alleged against him", indicates the prosecutor

One thing is certain, Yannick Agnel "acknowledged the materiality of the facts" while specifying that "

for him he did not have the feeling that there was constraint

", declared the prosecutor after the indictment of the swimmer, early December.

For her part, the complainant, affected by anorexia and depression before resolving to file a complaint, left the country and decided to stop swimming, where she nevertheless had a certain potential.

Source: lefigaro

All sports articles on 2022-01-26

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