The former director of Saint-Jean-de-Passy sentenced to five years in prison suspended-Liberation
It is a symbolic condemnation, while revelations of sexual and physical violence in Catholic education, triggered by The Betharram case At the start of the year, succeed. Friday, June 6, the former director of the Parisian establishment Saint-Jean-de-Passy, Daniel Chapellier, was found guilty of sexual assault on a 14-year-old student, and sentenced to five years in prison suspended by the Nanterre court.
At the heart of the debates, a quasi-home closed in the office of the director of this renowned Paris establishment: the teenager accuses the manager of having sexually assaulted him, while the latter assures that it is the pupil who exhibited before him.
Friday, on the second day of audience on Friday, twelve witnesses cited by the defense of the ex-director marched at the helm on Friday. Only one of them, an executive assistant, testified to having seen the teenager, summoned for school problems, in the director’s office that day in February 2021, but without having noticed anything else. Others, including the son of the accused, came to reaffirm their confidence in the qualities of« educator » by Daniel Chapellier, reputed to be severe or even authoritarian according to several testimonies.
Despite this series of testimonies in his favor, and the fact that the accused assured of « His absolute innocence » at the helm, « The court considered that the version of (the victim) was more likely », detailed President Céline Ballerini, evoking « Particularly serious facts ». « We are not on a simple sexual assault, because you are precisely an establishment director, and that (…) from the moment you are an educator you must be exemplary », continued the court.
Daniel Chapellier, 75, has had a career in private establishments under contract and notably directed Stanislas collegeaccused establishment of homophobic and sexist drifts having been the subject of an administrative inquiry in 2023.
The parents of the teenager, who was 14 years old at the time of the facts, the association of the Parisian private establishment and the innocence association in danger were received as civil parties. Me Clotilde Lepetit, the lawyer of the complainant, stressed that, like him, former students of establishments where Daniel Chapellier worked also told investigators that he asked them questions related to sexuality during interviews in the school setting.
During the survey, research on pornographic sites of terms such as « Teen Boys » (« Adolescents ») were found on the computer equipment of Daniel Chapellier, who ensures that he was simply looking to understand what his students were looking at.
This conviction and this sentence, of which his lawyer Me Yassine Yakouti immediately announced appeal, go beyond the three years of suspended prisoner required by the prosecutor.
The ex-director was also sentenced to an ineligibility sentence of five years, a ban on exercising an activity related to minors with provisional execution and registered in the file of authors of sexual or violent (Fijais).
