**62 guilty in child sex scandal that shocked **France
**By Colin Randall in **Paris
Heavy prison sentences were handed out yesterday to 62 people convicted of raping, abusing or prostituting dozens of children following the discovery of a vast paedophile network in France.
In one of the world’s largest prosecutions of a network dedicated to the sexual exploitation of children, the ringleaders were jailed for up to 28 years. Almost half of those convicted were women.
The 45 victims, many the children and grandchildren of adults who stood trial for attacking them, ranged from a baby of six months to 14-year-olds. They suffered more than 100 separate sexual assaults.
One man, a previously convicted child abuser named only as Philippe V to protect the identity of innocent relatives, was jailed for 28 years for a series of crimes including the rape of one of his granddaughters.
His son, identified as Franck V, 36, was jailed for 18 years for raping 14 children, including three of his own.
Franck V’s ex-wife, Patricia, 32, who was convicted of the rape of one of her daughters and acting as the “treasurer” of payments received through the children’s sexual services being sold, received 16 years.
Two other key members of the group, all from the city of Angers, were sent to prison for 26 and 28 years respectively, the latter, Eric J, for attacks on 15 children that led him to be branded “an ogre”.
The jury of five men and four women had spent nine days in seclusion as they deliberated over almost 2,000 questions with the court president, Judge Eric Maréchal, and two assessors.
The judge explained their verdicts to a number of the victims at the end of the sentencing. Only three of the 65 defendants were acquitted.
The unearthing of the child sex ring devastated the public perception of Angers, the western city that prides itself on being a lively student centre, the capital of Anjou and gateway to the Loire and its magnificent chateaux.
That such events could involve so many women as abusers came as a profound shock to French society.
A defence lawyer, Monika Pasquini, said it was absurd to suppose that women could not be paedophiles but wondered if France was ready to accept the transformation of their image of the gentle, maternal woman “into a harpy capable of raping and selling children, even her own”.
Victims were raped or indecently assaulted or made to provide sexual services as child prostitutes under the control of parents, neighbours and family friends.
The children were “hired out” for petty amounts of cash, cigarettes and alcohol or food over a two-and-a-half-year period ending early in 2002.
One girl was prostituted by her parents for a car tyre.“That is the atrocious level of barbarity that we’ve reached,” said Philippe Cosnard, a lawyer for a child protection group.
Defendants appearing one by one in court were dealt with in a marathon sentencing session at the end of a trial that heard harrowing testimony about the pleadings of helpless children.
“The children cried and shouted,” said one female defendant as she testified in tears about her own role in the assaults.
**One girl, a daughter of Franck V and Patricia, was allegedly raped more than 40 times. **
Many of the crimes were committed in the council flat rented by Franck V and overlooking a children’s playground in the quiet working class St Leonard district.
The age of the defendants ranged from 23 to 73. Some were known to the social services and questions are now being raised over why paedophilia on so great a scale was not detected sooner.
Defence lawyers had called for almost half the accused to be cleared, citing lack of evidence, the complexity of considering so many cases in the same trial and the defendants’ own histories of abuse when young.
Pascal Rouiller, who represented Franck V, said there was a danger of innocent people being convicted on the basis of “collective responsibility … a generalised guilt”, with jurors hard-pressed to treat each accused as an individual.
The crimes did not come to light until a 16-year-old girl complained that she had been raped by her mother’s boyfriend and his brother.