The essential Doctor Abdelhalim H. is being tried this Tuesday, September 3, 2024 in Toulouse. Seven patients accuse him of sexual assault in the exercise of his functions. He denies the facts or claims that these were misinterpreted medical procedures.
It is spring 2020. Sylviane (1) was taken to Joseph Ducuing hospital after a concussion. In front of the police, she will recount the inappropriate gestures of the doctor at the hospital who examined her: “He took me in his arms, touched my private parts, then came to my home.” Isolated act or unhealthy habit? The investigators will quickly form a conviction.
Several victims confide
A few days later, Imane, who also came to file a complaint, describes a strangely similar scenario. The emergency doctor Abdelhalim H. caressed her thigh, while explaining to her mother that her dress was not appropriate during Ramadan. An investigation was opened and the complaints followed one after the other: Cathy, who was questioned, spoke about her nipples “that he was touching”; there was also this young transgender man whose buttocks the doctor was groping. Another woman that Dr. H. had outright “kissed with tongue” by force before calling her a w… Or Malika whose chest the doctor had “felt for long minutes” before rubbing his lower abdomen against her.
In police custody, then during his hearings with the investigating judge, the accused will deny or minimize. According to him, the complainants, some are lying, others have misinterpreted purely medical gestures. But the testimonies of the emergency doctor’s professional entourage will allow the police to trace back to other facts. Tuesday, in the dock of the Toulouse criminal court, the defendant defended by Mes Emmanuelle Franck and Alexandre Martin, will have to explain himself for seven sexual assaults, including six on vulnerable people.
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Heavy history and ostrich policy
Because Doctor H.’s modus operandi, “his lack of empathy and his feeling of superiority”, is apparently well-established: most of the victims had come to the emergency room at night following recent pain or trauma, “placing them in a position of weakness in the face of the authority figure necessarily embodied by the doctor”, specifies an expert report included in the investigation file.
In addition, investigators have obtained the background of the practitioner, who was finally convicted on April 1, 2021, for sexual assault “by a person abusing the authority conferred on him by his position”, the events having taken place in Villefranche-de-Rouergue in 2015. The Carcassonne court also convicted him in 2012, for harassment with a view to obtaining sexual favors. Facts for which the Languedoc-Roussillon medical association did not see fit to sanction the person concerned.
Questioned as part of the judicial investigation opened in Toulouse on December 17, 2020, the management of the Ducuing hospital confirmed internal procedures against Abdelhalim H., none of which resulted in sanctions. The practitioner, now 65 years old, was the only emergency physician to accept numerous shifts, including at night… The victims, represented at the hearing by Messrs. Feres-Massol, Dupoux and Ételin, hope, through this trial, to move forward on the path to reconstruction.
(1) The victims’ first names have been changed.
