Accused of child rape: “It started when I was five”

The attorney general and one of the lawyers for the civil party during a recess. HOCINE ROUAGDIA

Me Olivier Massal défend Sylvain Lavinia qui comparaît en récidive légale. HOCINE ROUAGDIA

Ce vendredi, au second jour d’audience, la jeune partie civile raconte à la cour d’assises comment elle a été abusée par un sexagénaire, l’ami de la famille, le tonton. Stupéfiant.

On the second day of the hearing, it is without a doubt the testimony of the child that marks the most powerful moment of the trial of Sylvain Lavinia, accused of rape and sexual assault. Today, aged 14, this Friday morning, she steps forward to the stand, accompanied by the victim assistance dog and delivers the story of the sexual abuse. As soon as she begins her testimony, some jurors display a pale face, the others seem overwhelmed or pained. In the dock, the accused does not express anything. President Pasta asks “it started when ?” “it started when I was five years old”. The teenager does not stop jumping at the same time as she recounts the details of the sexual abuse in the witness box, facing the court and the jurors. “He asked to put his fingers in my ass,” she says as her lawyer, Me Lobier-Tupin, stands by her side in court.

“He made me dirty, that bastard”

She continues to tell the story of her ordeal. The president turns to the accused and asks him to respond to what has just been said in general. “She's not lying,” says the accused. The president tries to place the sexual assaults and rapes in time to make the facts fit the girl's age according to the sexual abuse in order to understand the precise chronology of the case. Some of the elements must be said publicly, this is the principle of the oral nature of the debates, because the jurors do not know the case and the questions must allow them to form an intimate conviction when they leave to deliberate at the end of the afternoon. “He smeared me, that bastard!” The presiding judge has just pointed out to a lawyer that “the accused had just acknowledged all the facts alleged”

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