Victims of false paedophilia case tell French MPs of ruined lives

[emad]

Jon Henley in Paris
Thursday January 19, 2006
The Guardian


Thirteen victims of one of France's biggest postwar legal fiascos fought back tears yesterday as they told an independent parliamentary inquiry how their lives had been ruined by false accusations of child sex abuse.

L'affaire d'Outreau described by Jacques Chirac, the French president, as an unprecedented judicial disaster, prompted calls for far-reaching reforms after just four of the original 18 people charged in a paedophilia case in northern France were finally convicted.

Of the remainder, one committed suicide and 12 spent up to four years in prison, losing their jobs and marriages and, in most cases, seeing their children placed in care. In the end the woman who had accused them of sexually abusing her and at least a dozen other minors admitted in court she had made the charges up.

During yesterday's hearings, shown live on television, the victims told how they had been humiliated, mistreated and held for months or years in jail despite inconsistencies in the evidence against them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1689772,00.html

[Bassic]

1. That has got to be the most horrible thing to go through.

Heard about the judge who refuses to apologize for the way he handled the case. Sounds like a pompous asshole.

[Greyhound]

2. This happens daily right here in Amerika. n/t