Guadeloupe jury finds former magistrate guilty of abusing step-daughter

Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe: A former magistrate Jean-Pierre Landi has been found guilty by a jury for sexually assaulting her then minor stepdaughters.

The former magistrate of age 64 is sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by five years of psychological supervision. Although, the prosecutors were looking forward to a prison term of at least ten years. Jean-Pierre will also have to register as a sex offender.

Medical examination has also confirmed that both the sisters were victims of sexual abuse. Jean-Pierre is having ten days to appeal the matter.

A jury which was made up of 6 women and two men announced the verdict, following a discussion of a few hours.

A revelation was made during the two-day trial that began on Wednesday that he had abused her stepdaughters between the time period of 2010 and 2017. The revelation was made of the sexual abuse when the older victim shared the incident with a classmate in the year 2017.

While the former investigator – Denis Montantin, was present in the court and cited, the former magistrate denied to had intercourse with the girls but admitted he had touched them inappropriately.

In a conversation with the local media, the ex-wife of Landi – Lucile Rossin, expressed some level of satisfaction with the verdict and hopes that the Shame that her daughters have endured over the past few years will be now faced by their abuser now. Rossin further added that “Shame must change sides. They are victims. They need not be ashamed. They did not do anything wrong.”

According to the statistics, a total of 93 per cent of the sexual abuse victims are known to their abusers.

According to the – Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), till the end of 2017, there are a total of 20 per cent of women, and 4 per cent of men have experienced some type of ‘sexual assault’ since the age of 16, which is equivalent to – 3.4 million female & 631,000 male victims. 3.1 per cent of women (510,000) and 0.8 per cent of men – (138,000) aged 16 to 59 had experienced a sexual assault in that year.