A kayaking figure in France, Jean-Yves Prigent, already sentenced to prison this summer for sexual assault of two teenagers, was charged and imprisoned on Thursday, November 7, for rape, assault and sexual harassment of minors, the Rennes prosecutor’s office announced.
The Breton coach, 70, was taken into police custody on Tuesday in this case. Jean-Yves Prigent, former canoeing world champion and former national canoeing coach, was sentenced in July to four years in prison, including one year with an electronic bracelet and three years with suspended probation, for two sexual assaults on minors during more than 15 years.
But, along with this procedure, “Further acts of sexual assault and sexual harassment against Jean-Yves Prigent have been reported”explains the Rennes prosecutor, Frédéric Teillet, in a statement.
Partial recognition of the facts.
This was reported by a young man whom the coach had supervised when he was a minor. “Acts of sexual assault dating from a period between 2005 and 2008”when he was a minor. Regarding sexual harassment, a young woman denounced repeated comments by Jean-Yves Prigent “with sexual connotations against him”.
Finally, in September 2024, one of the two victims of the first procedure tried this summer, “A young man, trained by Jean-Yves Prigent, reported new acts of rape committed against him” between 2023 and 2024, during the sports competitions that will take place in Prague (Czech Republic) and Bourg-Saint-Maurice (Savoy).
In police custody, the accused “he partially admitted the facts of rape, but disputes the facts of sexual assault and harassment”underlines Frédéric Teillet. After his accusation, he was placed in preventive detention “in accordance with the requirements of the prosecution”precise.
The coach, very influential in the small world of French kayaking, admitted the attacks this summer before the Rennes court. He admitted to having “stroked the penis” of two teenagers whom he trained and who slept, at his invitation, in the same bunk as him in his motorhome.
“I regret it and I regret it every day”the accused repeated during the hearing, evoking a “get out of the way”. The lawyer for the civil parties, Thomas Serrand, denounced, however, a “well established control process”refuting the thesis of“isolated acts”.
