Two French policemen have been arrested for allegedly raping a young woman while she was in custody at a court, a prosecutor said on Thursday.
The woman who accused the two policemen said the alleged assault took place overnight Tuesday to Wednesday in Bobigny, a town north of Paris, prosecutor Eric Mathais said.
Earlier Wednesday, the woman had been brought before the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office for ‘acts of parental neglect’, he added.
The woman is 26, while the two accused officers – who ‘have not been police officers for long’ – are 23 and 35, according to a source close to the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mathias declined to give further details because the investigation is ongoing.
France’s internal police investigation service, the IGPN, is looking into the case.
France has been rocked by a series of high-profile rape cases in recent months that have sparked a debate about consent.
Its parliament on Wednesday adopted a bill defining rape as any non-consensual sexual act, a vote hailed by supporters as a move from ‘a culture of rape to a culture of consent’.
It comes after the harrowing 2024 trial of Dominique Pelicot, Gisele Pelicot’s husband and the man branded the Monster of Avignon.
He was jailed for 20 years for drugging, raping and arranging for dozens of men to assault his wife over nearly a decade.
Gisele returned to court in France earlier this month to face one of her rapists as he appealed his conviction.
The 72-year-old, whose story shocked the world, was surrounded by police, her lawyers and her son Florian as she arrived at the courthouse in Nimes.
The only rapist left challenging his conviction for abusing Gisele is claiming he was ‘trapped’ by her husband.
Last year, 44-year-old Husamettin Dogan was sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Gisele after her husband, Dominique, invited him via an online chatroom to abuse her while she was unconscious.
While Gisele was accompanied by relatives as she made her way into the court, her daughter, Caroline Darian, did not attend. The pair have not spoken since the first trial, when Darian accused her mother of turning the tragedy into a ‘spectacle.’
Credit: Daily Mail
