A miscarriage of justice calls an entire system into question

IT HAS been a landmark case in French judicial history in more ways than one. Since mid-January, a parliamentary inquiry has been studying one of the country’s biggest post-war miscarriages of justice: how six innocent people, jailed for years in connection with a paedophile ring, were acquitted on appeal only last December, after it turned out that key evidence against them had been made up; and how seven other innocents spent months behind bars. The testimony of the acquitted has been televised live, gripping the public. This week, national TV channels cleared their schedules to broadcast the testimony of Fabrice Burgaud, the lead investigating judge in the case.

The affair began in 2000, when social workers suspected sexual abuse of children in Outreau, a suburb of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France. The following year (when neighbouring Belgium was being rocked by the trial of a serial rapist and murderer, Marc Dutroux), a judicial investigation into a suspected paedophile ring was opened, led by Mr Burgaud. Some 20 children were identified as victims, including those of three of the couples charged.

At the trial, in 2004, the central evidence was testimony by one of the accused, Myriam Delay, as well as by various children. Seven of the 17 accused were acquitted, after serving months of pre-trial detention. Of the ten found guilty, only four—including Mrs Delay—remain behind bars today, six having been acquitted on appeal in December. The stories told by the acquitted on television have been devastating: marriages wrecked, children taken into care, jobs lost, reputations in tatters. An 18th accused committed suicide in prison in 2002. A nervous Mr Burgaud, meanwhile, said this week that he had done his job “in all honesty”.