The Doubs gendarmerie launched on Thursday a “call for victims” after the husband of a former nursery assistant in the Besançon area was indicted for six acts of rape and sexual assault on girls aged 5 to 12.
This is what the Besançon prosecutor said at a press conference on Friday.
"This individual is likely to have committed acts in very large numbers" between the years 1970 and 2020, said Etienne Manteaux.
A judicial investigation had been opened for rape and sexual assault at the beginning of the year after a young college girl had revealed to have been the victim of sexual assault at her nanny's place, implicating the latter's husband.
The facts were repeated the previous year, on the extracurricular time she spent at the couple's home.
The 12-year-old confided in her college nurse after feeling unwell.
Her sister said she had undergone the same treatment ten years earlier.
Four other women and young women who had been kept by this lady denounced similar facts.
"I can hardly believe that nothing happened between 1973 and 2020"
The childminder's husband, a retired 74-year-old truck driver, was indicted and jailed in August following complaints from six alleged victims including her own granddaughter.
The maternal assistant died in early May 2021 from cancer.
She could not be heard on the facts.
After the publication of an article relating the affair by Est Républicain, a 56-year-old woman claimed to have suffered the same violence in 1973. “I can hardly believe that nothing happened between 1973 and 2020 ...
This suggests that there may be many, many other victims, ”said the prosecutor.
"For this lady, the facts are prescribed but that does not prevent from initiating an investigation and it is quite useful for former victims to come forward to understand the extent of the facts", added the magistrate.
Investigators from the Besançon-Tarragnoz gendarmerie brigade then launched a "call for witnesses and / or victims" to try to identify possible other prey of this man who was domiciled in the Montrapon district of Besançon with his wife nursery assistant until 1978, then in the Saône commune.
Since the call was broadcast, according to France Bleu, a new victim has already made himself known.
