Violence against teenagers placed in families without approval: judgment expected this Wednesday early afternoon in Châteauroux

Two months after the trial of families judged for having taken in minors without approval, some of whom say they suffered physical and psychological violence, humiliation and forced labor, the Châteauroux criminal court is due to deliver its judgment on Wednesday.

At the end of a particularly trying week of hearings for the victims, in October, sentences of up to seven years in prison were requested for the main defendants, 18 in total.

The harshest sentences, accompanied by a committal warrant and a fine of 20,000 euros, were requested against the alleged masterminds of the network, Julien M. and Bruno C., suspected of having brutalized the teenagers.

Julien M.'s parents, Colette and Antoine, who are also said to have played key roles in this case, were asked for one-year prison sentences and a fine of 50,000 euros, as well as the seizure of their assets.

In October, the 18 people prosecuted were due to answer before the Châteauroux Criminal Court for acts of violence, undeclared work in an organized gang, taking in minors without prior declaration, administering harmful substances or using forged documents.

From 2010 to 2017, around sixty children were illegally entrusted by the Child Welfare Service of the North to a reception facility located in Indre, which did not have the necessary approval necessary.

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This structure, “Enfance et Bien-Être”, is said to have received at least 630,000 euros over seven years. The young people were taken in by families from Indre, Creuse and Haute-Vienne.

Against the families who took in these young people without approval, lighter sentences ranging from four months of suspended prison to two years of prison were requested.

“They all participated, at the end of the chain perhaps, but they participated”, deputy prosecutor Amélie Trochet insisted in her indictment.

Damning accounts

The case broke in 2017 after the hospitalization for “a fall from a bike” of one of the children, Matthias. The latter refuses, after a week in a coma, to return to his presumed tormentor. A report was then made to the public prosecutor, which revealed repeated acts committed since 2010.

During the debates, the victims, nine of whom attended the hearing, gave damning accounts: “beatings, strangulation”, humiliation and insults.

Many of them, aged 12, 14 or 16 at the time, also reported “forced labour”, “dropping out of school” to undertake renovation work for the benefit of the two main defendants.

The main defendants, Julien M. and his parents in the lead, sought to minimize the facts, referring to necessary “reframing”, “tapes”, on “difficult children” that “no one wanted”.

A notable absentee from the trial according to the civil parties, Child Welfare Services (ASE) also found itself at the heart of the debates but none of its managers were prosecuted.

“We can put the spotlight on social assistance and its dysfunctions”, the deputy prosecutor had conceded. But “it was not the ASE that, I use the words of the procedure, 'pissed on Matthias'”.

“It is the duty of all of us not to turn a blind eye”, argued Me Jean Sannier, victims' lawyer, asking the court to “render justice for their past and their future”.

The judgment is to be delivered at 1:30 p.m.