A group of firefighters who had sex with a vulnerable 14-year-old girl, Julie were found not guilty of rape.
Despite a lengthy battle for justice by the victim and her family, the Supreme Court in France issued its ruling yesterday, March 17.
According to The Sun UK, Julie says 20 firefighters had sex with her when she was aged between 13 and 15 in her house, in the fire station and in a hospital toilet.
The abuse happened after the emergency services were called to help when Julie was unwell at home, around 130 times over the two-year period.
She eventually told her mum, who reported it to cops and although no action was taken against 17 of the firefighters, three of them were charged with sexual abuse.
Her mum told BFMTV the firefighters called her daughter the “coch”, or “slut” and had her number posted in their barracks in Paris.
In an earlier ruling, magistrates refused to prosecute the firefighters for rape after deciding Julie had not been forced to have sex with them and was “provocative and flirtatious”.
Julie contested the decision before the Supreme Court, arguing her age, health problems and medication she was taking that made her lethargic meant she could not be considered to have consented to sex.
Judges dismissed her case, ruling that “the victim had the necessary discernment” and there was no proof she had been obliged to have sex.
The firefighters will now be tried for sexual abuse, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail, rather than rape, which has a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Her mum Corinne Leriche said Julie, now 26, was let down by authorities and the legal system after years of abuse by the firefighters who treated her as a “sexual object”.
Her family have expressed their anger at the “sexist, erroneous” judgement, which they say is based on “archaic ideology”.
“[The judgement] validates a false vision of the balance of power between an adult and a minor,” said the Leriche family.
“It embraces the sexist, erroneous and violent representations of sexuality and, at the same time that all of society is rising up against this archaic ideology today.
“This judgment is undoubtedly at odds with reality and with France’s international obligations.”