Paedophile trial fuels castration debate
A Frenchman with multiple paedophilia convictions went on trial today over the kidnap and rape of a 5-year-old boy, a case that has prompted some in the French government to consider castration for repeat sex offenders.
Francis Evrard, 63, has spent half of his life behind bars for sexually abusing children. In August 2007, just days after his release from prison, he kidnapped a boy in the northern town of Roubaix, locked him in a garage, drugged him and raped him.
The case caused such outrage in French public opinion that the government rushed out new legislation in response in 2008 that allows authorities to keep criminals in jail after the end of their term if they are deemed to remain a threat to society.
That was criticised by lawyers and human rights activists who said it challenged fundamental principles of justice, but Evrard is now being cited as a reason for the government to take new measures against repeat sex offenders.
Evrard wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy this month asking for his testicles to be surgically removed to free him from his paedophile impulses. Surgical castration is illegal in France and the president has not commented publicly on Evrard's request.
The father of his 5-year-old victim denounced Evrard's letter as a stunt aimed at obtaining a more lenient sentence, pointing out that Evrard had made the request two years after his crime but days before his trial.
France, along with a number of other European countries including Sweden and Denmark, already allows "chemical castration" or the use of drugs to lower the sex drive of offenders who agree to it.
But Evrard's letter and his trial, as well as a separate case in September in which a woman was abducted and strangled by a recently released rapist, have prompted senior ministers to advocate beefing up possible punishments against sex offenders.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the government was considering forcing some of them to undergo chemical castration, while Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the option of physical castration should be debated, including in parliament.
Sarkozy, a former interior minister, rose to power on his "tough on crime" credentials. He and his government have been widely criticised for churning out ill-considered new laws as populist, knee-jerk reactions to public outrage over crimes.
Former Justice Minister Robert Badinter, the man behind the abolition of the death penalty in France, spoke out on Monday against the drive towards new castration rules.
"We don't mutilate human beings ... in our societies," Badinter said on Europe 1 radio, adding that it was not for Evrard to decide his own fate.
"He will answer for his crime and I think that at his age, he's not going to enjoy freedom again anytime soon, if at all."
2 Comments
Post comment
Please sign in or create your Account to post comments.
Joseph Schembri
Oct 26th 2009, 19:33
It was chemical castration (for homosexual acts) that drove the mathematics genius and father of artificial intelligence to commit suicide in the 1950s. But I believe that modern chemical castration (it just means that the criminal is given drugs that lower his sex drive) is much safer. I certainly do not agree with surgical castration. Mutilation is what happens in Islamic states - and they still have cases of rape. Still what this man did was horrendous and some way of controlling him but without in any way going to back to barbarism is needed.
Joseph Schembri
Oct 26th 2009, 18:26
From Wikipedia. Alan Turing was a mathematical genius: "Turing's homosexuality, which was illegal and considered to be a mental illness during his lifetime, resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952. He accepted treatment with female hormones as an alternative to going to prison. He died in 1954, several weeks before his 42nd birthday. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war."