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Tried for 24 sexual assaults, a French pedophile raged under cover of humanitarian action

2021-05-25T08:52:07.691Z


A Frenchman is on trial this Tuesday for twenty sexual assaults on children in Nepal and Cambodia. He took advantage of a


It's a terrible list that grows over so-called humanitarian trips.

Twenty-four names from Nepal to Cambodia and as many children of around ten that Philippe Gérard claimed to help.

Poor kids, sometimes orphans, who thought they would find in this 52-year-old Frenchman the charitable soul that could get them off the streets.

These 24 young boys would have actually been the victims of sexual assault committed between January 2013 and October 2015 by this fifty-something from the north of France.

Former director of a holiday center convicted in 2005 for five sexual assaults on minors, Philippe Gérard is tried for the same reason on Tuesday by the Paris Criminal Court.

A notable and rare fact in cases of child pornography tourism, several Nepalese and Cambodian children found by associations have filed a civil suit.

Signals that should have alerted

In May 2014, several reports reached the ears of French police officers from the Central Office for the Repression of Violence to the Person (OCRVP).

It is first of all a Nepalese association specializing in the fight against pedophilia that surprises Philippe Gérard with several boys in hotels in Kathmandu (Nepal).

Then it is French humanitarians who are astonished by his attitude and his proximity to children in view of his judicial past.

Read alsoVast anti-pedophile in France, about sixty police custody

Registered in the file of sex offenders, a time prohibited from contact with minors, Philippe Gérard has been involved for several years in the humanitarian association Philmy Voyageurs Solidaires. Supposed to offer schooling to street kids, the association was founded in 2009 by Philippe Gérard's mother. Surprisingly, she never made the slightest trip to Nepal or Cambodia and conveniently forgot to register her son on the association's statutes ...

"Several important signals have been missed," says Me Noémie Saïdi-Cottier, lawyer for Ecpat, an association that fights against sexual exploitation.

His trips to countries plagued by sex tourism should have alerted.

"This case raises the question of the follow-up of people convicted of sexual violence against minors", also considers Me Frédéric Benoist, lawyer for the association La Voix de l'Enfant.

He slept naked among the children

Thus, under the guise of humanitarian activities, Philippe Gérard will multiply trips to Kathmandu and to orphanages in Cambodia or India. In these structures, his attitude is unequivocal, relates the investigation of the French police. The fifty-year-old sleeps naked among the children, takes showers with them and is strangely affectionate with these boys who call him "the Uncle" or "the grandfather". Aged 9 to 15 years at the time of the facts, the children who could be heard by the authorities practically all deliver the same grim story, evoking having undergone blowjobs and touching from Philippe Gérard.

Arrested in October 2015 in France, the suspect admitted during the investigation of “sexual touching”. As is often the case in this type of business, he explained that he did not have the feeling of committing a crime, that he found it difficult to understand "that children appearing to be radiant (...) can be victims". He also put forward his desire to educate and help these children… Faced with the psychologist, he also admitted that his “humanitarian missions may have been a cover, or a way of giving oneself a clear conscience (…) everything by satisfying his sexual urges. Contacted, his lawyer did not wish to speak.

Source: leparis

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