An English speaker in police custody in Paris for rape and sexual assault on children

An English speaker is in police custody on Tuesday in Paris, suspected of rape and sexual assault on kindergarten children, AFP learned from a source close to the case, confirming information from Le Parisien. According to the daily, around twenty complaints target this man of Algerian nationality who worked at the Saint-Laurent private school, in the north of Paris. Contacted by AFP, the management of the school did not wish to comment.

An investigation was opened at the beginning of July after a first complaint from the parents of a three and a half year old girl, for acts allegedly committed during English initiation sessions, according to Le Parisien. The company CapEnglish, the speaker's employer at the time of the facts reported, explained in a press release that "one of its former speakers in a private school located in Paris was indicted for serious acts falling, it seems, under the Penal Code."

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Dismissed as a precaution

“He was immediately removed from any intervention with the students as a precautionary measure as soon as the head of the establishment informed CapEnglish of the alleged facts,” she added. The company “would like to point out that, during its recruitment and before any intervention with students, the checks provided for as part of its procedures (...) had been carried out, without any element brought to its attention hindering its intervention with minors”.

CapEnglish “is fully available to investigators and, more broadly, to the competent authorities”: it “will provide them with all its cooperation and will communicate, in compliance with the applicable legal framework, all the elements useful to the ongoing investigations”.