France: Ex-champ swimmer admits ‘shame’ at child rape trial
Posted Jan 22, 2019 12:18:58 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BORDEAUX, France — A court in southwest France has heard how a French former swimming champion who went on to manage one of France’s most successful ice hockey teams wormed his way into the trust of admiring families to sexually abuse their children.
Vincent Leroyer spoke Tuesday of his “very sincere and very deep shame for the acts I imposed” on the victims, aged six to 14 at the time.
Leroyer, who was on the second day of his trial in the southwest city of Bordeaux, acknowledges nearly all of the accusations levelled against him by five men in their thirties or forties who have struggled with addiction and other difficulties since they suffered a catalogue of sexual abuse at his hands as children and adolescents.
Leroyer faces up to 20 years imprisonment.
John Leicester, The Associated Press
