Stories that “make you gag.” You had to have your heart set on Tuesday in front of the 15th chamber of the Paris Criminal Court. Philippe G., 51, was on trial for multiple sexual assaults on minors, committed during humanitarian trips in Asia, between 2011 and 2015. Through the voice of the president, the testimonies of 24 children, aged 6 to 14, described repeated sexual violence, while he was alone with them. A sentence of 14 years of criminal imprisonment was requested against him.
“You must not tell my parents”
They are called Raju, Kirian, Pich, Rajan and all delivered the same souvenirs to the specialized Nepalese NGO Saathi, who investigated French humanitarian aid in 2015. “Mr. Philippe put his hand under my pants,” said an 11-year-old child at the time of the events. “Uncle Philippe played with my penis in the shower. Afterwards he gave us some oil,” explains another. “He touched my penis three times. When he wanted to masturbate again I said no.” Yes, but “Uncle Philippe paid for school and had a large swimming pool,” said a third. “You shouldn’t tell my parents,” one of them worries.
These children’s words add sordid to this affair which was not lacking. Philippe G. has already been sentenced in 2005 to three years in prison, half of which suspended for assaulting several little boys while he was an educator in a summer camp in Haute-Savoie.
This condemnation, and its inclusion in the Automated judicial file perpetrators of sexual or violent offenses (Fijaisv), did not prevent him from opening in Asia in 2009, the association “Philmy Voyageurs Solidaires” to come to the aid of “the most disadvantaged populations”. “Philmy” because little Asian children couldn’t pronounce the first name “Philippe.”
Blond hair in ponytail, jeans and hiking sneakers on the feet, the defendant assures that his humanitarian association was not created to respond, again, to his urges towards young boys:
– One can wonder if your desire to help the children was sincere or if it was not intended to satisfy your desire for sexual relation with them, advances the president. – The idea was to find the assistance, the help that I carried when I was in animation, supports Philippe G. I did not create the association for that.- If you try to pass yourself off as a benefactor of humanity, it will not be not here, retorts the judge.
Nudist teen boy
At the bar, the fifty-year-old is almost insolent towards the court, constantly cutting off and taking back the judge and the representatives of the civil parties. If he does not deny most of the accusations made in the file, Philippe G. is readily picky about the testimonies of the children, when the account of one of them differs in details from the one he presents.
“Ah, therefore, he is a child who has a lot of imagination, is that it?”, Quips the president. He procrastinates on the very definition of masturbation, which he believes must be distinguished from “touching” of the private parts. “You nitpick,” the judge tired.
After trying to escape the authorities, Philippe G. was arrested in the fall of 2015, in France, near his mother’s home. During the searches, “extremely numerous” searches for child pornography content were found on his computer. “Nudist teen boy” and other explicit keywords are frequently searched. “The nudity of young boys provokes a sexual emotion in me,” he admits.
A “money blackmail”
From adolescence, the defendant says he was attracted to the bodies of young boys, but does not see himself as homosexual. “I cannot participate in an act of penetration, but I cannot explain it to myself,” he says, referring to possible touching while he was in boarding school. The experts have in any case unsealed “no sign of guilt” in his reasoning, as well as an absence of empathy.
“I couldn’t conceive that the children were in pain. (…) Insidiously, I only saw the signs that comforted me. I was in a form of denial.” “You maintained your own blindness,” confirms the judge.
“Here is an umpteenth file which shows the bankruptcy of child protection”, sighed the lawyer of La Voix de l’Enfance, while his colleague Noémie Saidi-Cottier denounced “a blackmail for money” on poor children. Financing their schooling and taking care of them on a daily basis, Philippe G. had “de facto authority” over them, agreed the prosecutor, requesting 14 years in prison, as well as a ban on working with minors.
Late that evening, the court reserved its judgment on July 5. Earlier, the humanitarian had certified that “when certain children showed him a reluctance”, he “did not insist”. Yet one of them had asked him: “No uncle, please don’t touch me.”
Original article published on BFMTV.com
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