A French court docket sentenced a former physiotherapist Friday to fifteen years in jail for raping and sexually assaulting 10 sufferers and his 16-year-old niece.
Valery Gourbier, 56, was accused of abusing and raping girls sufferers at his bodily remedy observe in within the city of Villiers-sur-Orge, close to Paris, from 2013 to 2015.
The court docket sentenced him to a fair harsher time period than the 12 to 14 years requested by the prosecution, ruling he had abused the “relationship of belief” he was meant to have with the victims.
First accused a decade in the past, Gourbier initially denied wrongdoing, however later confessed to a few of the prices in the middle of the investigation and court docket proceedings.
Testifying on Thursday, he admitted to 5 of the seven rapes he was accused of committing.
Most of the victims have been former sufferers.
He was additionally charged with raping his teenage niece throughout a trip in 2007.
In all, 16 girls testified Gourbier had sexually assaulted them.
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Speaking earlier than the decision, Gourbier requested them for forgiveness.
“I’ve one phrase: aid,” a 34-year-old sufferer informed AFP after the sentencing.
“The jury understood that he lied… that he was a predator.”
France has been shaken by a sequence of high-profile sexual assault instances in latest months, notably the trial of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed for 20 years in December for repeatedly drugging his spouse so he and strangers might rape her.
