A priest was sentenced on Friday, November 8, to eighteen years in prison for rape and sexual assault committed against several children, in particular when he was a priest in the town of Massiac (Cantal).
Philippe Pouzet, 70, was also sentenced to a treatment order, five years of socio-judicial monitoring, a ban on travel to Cantal and a lifetime ban on any activity with minors.
At the end of his trial before the Cantal Criminal Court, Attorney General Paolo Giambiasi demanded fifteen years in prison. “for society and for (…) do justice » to the families of the victims. The priest was being tried for the sexual assault of four children from the same family and the rape of one of them around 2017, as well as for the sexual assault, in 1994, of a teenager, who is now 44 years old.
This large family of seven children, isolated in the city, was the target of someone who, a priest of Massiac from 2011 to 2017, organized evenings at the parish house, offered gifts, lent his car or paid for a telephone plan.
Dozens of sexual assaults
During the hearing, Philippe Pouzet admitted dozens of sexual assaults and the rape of a 14-year-old teenager, while ensuring that the children had the initiative or “in search of themselves”.
“It does not recognize the status of the victims”estimated Jean-François Canis, the families’ lawyer. “I am overwhelmed by all the pain that has come to the surface. I am the only one responsible for it.”the defendant finally declared before the court retired.
In his argument, his lawyer, Frédéric Franck, asked the jurors not to take into account his client’s difficulties in explaining his actions. “The facts are instinctive, that’s why he doesn’t know how to go further to explain them. (…) Don’t blame him for that. “He did it, he committed himself, he doesn’t know how to explain it.”argued when arguing against the required fifteen years.
“It’s a reinstatement of the death penalty, take a rope and go hang him. (…) “it will go faster”said. In total ten victims were interviewed and a fifth child in the family claimed to have been raped.
The Church knew
The investigation showed that the Church, aware of the priest’s defects, did not interrupt his career: it had paid special attention to him. “emotional problems”of the “moments of abandonment” which had led to “incidents”.
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In 1984, in Sommières (Gard), then a boarding school teacher, he was tried for “indecent attack”after sexually assaulting two children.
“We reread history knowing what happened”justified Mgram Bruno Grua, former bishop of Saint-Flour, adds: “Of course, from time to time I tell myself that I should have been more attentive. » An investigation director who came to testify estimated that a dozen priests were conscious: “I don’t know why they didn’t remove him from his priesthood. »
