This Monday, June 5, in the front row of the Vannes court room, they are seven young women, facing the one who must answer for voyeurism against them. But three other victims are missing. They are minors, aged 12, 14 and 17. This resident of Ambon filmed under the skirts of supermarket customers, without their knowledge, in Muzillac, Theix-Noyalo and Vannes.
Confused by CCTV
It was because one of the victims felt that a man had followed her into one of the stores that she went to file a complaint with the gendarmerie. The study of CCTV images of the supermarket had made it possible to discover the actions of a man whose registration of his car had also been able to be noted by the cameras.
Without a new complaint being filed by another victim, the gendarmes had extended their investigation to several supermarkets. And so in March he had recognized this same voyeur filming in a supermarket in Vannes under the skirts of an employee. He had been arrested in flagrante delicto and, in his telephone and his computer, had been found videos.
Impulses
Aged 42, this teacher – who has just decided to give up his job – is the father of two children and his wife has discovered everything about her husband’s behavior. He explains himself with embarrassment in front of the court: “I acted by impulses. It was a spiral, like a drug, which I could not control, without realizing that I was harming the victims. I was choosing adult women and didn’t realize three were underage. I am care today. […] I am ashamed of what I have done”.
His psychological expertise speaks of “obsessive voyeurism, a psychiatric disorder requiring care and monitoring”. His lawyer, Me Anne-Sophie Barle, specifies: “Beyond his social and family integration, he is first and foremost a very lonely man. There are flaws in him that may explain his shameful behavior.”
Risk of repetition
Without a lawyer, the victims react to the fact that the defendant affirms that he acted randomly. One says: “When I entered the store, I remember feeling his gaze on me. Contrary to what he says, he took a good look at his victims to choose them”. A second assures: “He knew which victim he was going to choose. He followed me because I know that I saw him, at least, in three different departments of the store”.
For prosecutor Sylvain Darchy, “we were able to identify ten victims but there may be more. The defendant’s personality challenges because he still has a long way to go to understand his acting out, with a risk of repetition. The impact on the victims is real today”.
Until then unknown to the courts, the culprit was sentenced to sixteen months in prison with a probationary suspension for three years, with the obligation to take care of himself and a ban on carrying out an activity with minors.