Rouens. CHU nurse tried for sexual assault on underage patients
By Writing Normandy
Published on
A nurse from Rouen University Hospital before the tribunal. He is appearing on Friday September 30, 2022, suspected of having, between 2012 and 2017, sexually assaulted two underage female patients and exchanged pornographic images with them.
A report from the CHU to the prosecutor
The case broke out on July 3, 2019, when the director general of the Rouen University Hospital sent a report to the public prosecutor. He is a nurse from the psychopathology unit. A former patient tells the healthcare team that she had a relationship with the nurse from 2016 to 2017, during her hospitalization in the unit.
Received by his management, the agent in question disputes these allegations and claims to be the victim of “harassment”. However, upon examining his professional career, CHU officials discovered that he had already been implicated twice by patients, minors, in 2012 and 2016. The prosecutor then ordered a judicial inquiry. Very quickly, the patients in question are treated.
“He imposed himself with his charisma and his domination”
During 2020, Aurélie* is heard by the investigators. Hospitalized in 2016-2017, she describes to them the increasingly urgent attitude of the nurse: “He started to put his hand on mine several times before kissing me one evening. Then it became regular. Every time it was evening, he would come into my room to kiss me. »
Before taking a new step. “He had installed a mattress in the activity room and started to have bigger desires but I didn’t want to,” says the young girl. She tells the police about three to four episodes like this. Aurélie also remembers that during the exit permits, “there were sexual relations in hotels”. “I thought he really liked me but in hindsight, he imposed himself in my life with his charisma and his dominance. »
The former patient also assures that the nurse sent her pornographic photos and videos and that he asked her for videos “where she masturbated with her feet”.
To accredit her statements, Aurélie gives the police the geolocation of her phone at each hotel where she says she went with the nurse, as well as gifts and intimate gel that he would have offered her. Investigators can thus establish that the geolocations of Aurélie’s phone correspond to the suspect’s bank statements.
“He was very excited”
A second patient is heard by the police. Maude* was hospitalized in the same department as Aurélie in 2012. Asked about the nurse, she also tells us about a “step by step” approach technique: “He started by caressing me, especially my feet, then a day he kissed me with his tongue while caressing my buttocks, he was very excited. »
She admits not to have rejected the individual because “I was proud that an older man was interested in me”. Later, “he told me that he wanted to sleep with me, that he really wanted me”.
The psychological expertise concludes that the two victims hold an authentic speech without fabrication.
“I impose limits”, defends the defendant
Placed in police custody, the 31-year-old nurse disputes the charges against him. For him, the two young girls are “erotomaniacs” (a delusional psychological disorder characterized by the conviction in an individual that he is loved by another, editor’s note). He claims to have acted within the rules and reported “adverse events” to his colleagues and his hierarchy.
At the helm, the 30-year-old sticks to his guns: “I was the youngest nurse in the unit, often seen as a friend by patients, but I imposed limits. “. He maintains that the medical team had noticed “sexualized attitudes in Aurélie”. “I asked for her to be lower in another unit but nothing was done. The defendant denies having left any ambiguity hanging over his relationship with the two patients.
Asked about hotel reservations, the man explains that at the time he was in the process of separation and had “ephemeral” relationships with women. For him, “Maude invents this whole story”. Throughout the hearing, questions flared up on both sides of the bar, sometimes tempers flared, forcing the president to call the parties to order.
“The hospital did not believe me”
Six witnesses were summoned to appear on the stand. If the majority goes in favor of the respondent, describes him as a “rigorous nurse, incapable of such acts”, his ex-wife presents him as “a great manipulator, fetishist and unfaithful”. As for the expertise, it underlines “the inauthentic personality of the defendant who is perfectly aware of the prohibition he has to transgress, his victimization, his objectal link to the other and to sexuality”.
Maude, in 6e year of medicine, is present at the hearing. Stressed and moved, she finds the courage to give her version of the facts: “The hospital did not believe me, I felt a deep sense of injustice, I was accused of being an actress, he knew how to weave his web perfectly and protect his post. Supported by her relatives who say they are “outraged by the attitude of the defendant at the hearing”, Aurélie also manages to give her version of the facts and holds her accusations.
For their lawyers, the defendant has established an unhealthy context. They recall that as an adult, it was up to him to set the framework. “Instead, he abused his position to fulfill his sexual urges. “For the civil parties, the nurse adds suffering to suffering, “by erecting slander as a defense system, even denying the evidence”.
Four years in prison required
On the side of the public prosecutor, the conspiracy theory alleged by the defense is swept away, “defamatory and humiliating”: “The victims do not know each other, they were certainly hospitalized in the same service but four years apart. “However, “their versions have common points”, underlines the prosecution for which the facts alleged against the defendant are characterized. He will endeavor to prove it by a long demonstration taking up the elements of the investigation.
Faced with “the extreme seriousness of the facts”, the public prosecutor’s office requires the sentence of four years’ imprisonment, two of which are accompanied by a probationary suspension for two years with the obligation of care and a ban on entering into contact with the victims. He is also asking for a permanent ban on practicing a profession related to minors.
For his part, counsel for the defendant requested release, considering that there was no “objective element” to corroborate the allegations of the victims and that the doubt should benefit his client.
After more than nine hours of hearing, the court reserved its decision for November 25, 2022.
*Name has been changed
From our correspondent Frédéric Bernard
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