Post by Emerald City on Mar 4, 2005 19:40:56 GMT -5
By VERENA VON DERSCHAU, Associated Press Writer
ANGERS, France - This town in western France, known for its medieval castle and Cointreau liqueur, now has a new, more sordid reputation — as the home of a pedophilia ring where parents allegedly raped, abused and pimped children and even babies.
Sixty-six people have gone on trial this week, but some residents still apparently refuse to accept that such crimes could be perpetrated in their midst.
"I've heard people say to me, 'But you know, these children were used to it.' It's the horror of horror," said Deputy Mayor Michelle Moreau.
The trial's second day Friday was devoted to presenting the more than 200 witnesses to the court. The trial is expected to last four months, but getting over the horror could take far longer in Angers.
"It is an ordeal," Moreau, who oversees policing for City Hall, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Investigators say 45 children — aged from 6 months to 14 years — were abused by their parents or people close to them from 1999 to 2002, in some cases in exchange for small amounts of money, food, cigarettes or alcohol.
"It's the main difficulty for these children because the aggressor is close to them, it's their parents, their grand parents, their uncles, their cousins, so it is very difficult because they find themselves in a loyalty struggle," said defense attorney Meriem Baba-Ronciere. "If they talk, they accuse mother and father and they will have to go prison and won't see them again."
The case, coming on the heels of another high-profile pedophilia trial in northern France last year, has prompted renewed soul-searching about how people could sink so low in a country that prides itself as an economic and political leader of Europe. Some of the accused were abused themselves as children.
One defense attorney, Pascal Rouiller, said his client "sits in the box next to his father, who is the perpetrator of sexual acts on him only years ago and is now his accomplice."
Alcoholism, poverty and, defense lawyers claim, a failure of social workers to spot signs of abuse may have played a role. More than half of the accused, aged 27 to 73, were unemployed, living off benefits in state-supported housing. Some are said by their lawyers to be illiterate and Moreau said some were already known to police.
"But in all sincerity, I never imagined that they were involved in pedophilia," she said. "I do not know how to explain what happened."
Angers, a historic town of 156,000 people, sits on a bend of the Loire River, 165 miles southwest of Paris. Confectioner Adolphe Cointreau and his brother Edouard-Jean created their famous orange-flavored spirit here in 1849. Angers' 13th-century castle is a well-known landmark.
The town is not without its difficulties. Moreau said nearly one-third of Angers' housing is state-supported for low-income families — higher than in nearby Nantes or Le Mans. But the deputy mayor said hardship does not explain away the alleged abuse.
"One must be cautious," she said. Most of the thousands of people in Angers who live in state-funded housing "do not behave in a criminal fashion."
Neighboring Belgium has also been rocked by pedophilia scandals. Government figures in France do not show sharp increases in convictions for child rape or abuse.
Instead, experts say investigators, courts, professionals and the media are getting better at exposing a problem that has long existed. They add that media coverage on pedophilia cases and legal changes to protect victims have prompted mistreated children to come forward.
The Angers case came to light in November 2000, when a 16-year-old girl alleged she had been raped by her mother's boyfriend and his brother. The men had already been convicted of sexual violence.
Moreau said that while the publicity from the trial "can be bad for the town," she hopes that exposing the case will help combat such abuse.
"We have to bounce back and make it a subject of discussion," she said. "We really have to show that this is a crime, advertise that and explain it."
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