Three individuals were arrested and placed in police custody as part of the Betharram case inquiry on Wednesday, February 19. These are two former general supervisors and a Betharram supervisor, two lay people and a religious.
While the Bétharram affair has returned to the front of the stage in recent weeks, the investigation opened in February 2024 advances. Three individuals were arrested on Wednesday February 19 by the gendarmes of the Pau research section said the prosecution. They were immediately placed in police custody for “aggravated leaders of rape, aggravated sexual assault and/or aggravated violence likely to have been committed between 1957 and 2004 within the Notre-Dame de Betharram school, located in Lestelle-Bétharram, “said the press release from the Pau public prosecutor, Rodolphe Jarry.
The police custody were three men born in 1931, in 1955 and in 1965 according to the details of the magistrate. According to the information collected by The Parisianthe three suspects are two former general supervisors and a Betharram supervisor, two lay people and a religious. The Pau prosecution previously specified that the three men were particularly targeted with 59, 23 and 17 complaints against them respectively. The first, Father Henri L. is 94 years old. “Declared victims had denounced sexual abuse, remembering a religious who, ‘open cassock, went to dormitories at night to impose blowjobs and masturbations on young boys,” said the daily.
The other two individuals heard by the gendarmes of the Pau research section are the supervisors Patrick M. (59) and Henri S. (69). The first was employed in Betharram “shortly before the bursting of the scandal, until February 2024” indicates the newspaper. He is suspected of several rapes on students in the 1980s and 1990s. The last, nicknamed “horse”, is also accused of violent facts over the same period. As a reminder, 134 complaints were identified by the collective of victims against 22 adults and a minor person at the time of the facts, 12 of whom are still alive. Note that the complaints sent to the association are not all officially filed with the authorities.
A possibility of bypassing the prescription of the facts?
The PAU prosecutor’s office said that the arrests on Wednesday, February 19, follow a calendar stopped since January 31, 2025, “date on which the investigation file was given, by the soldiers of the research section, to the prosecution of Pau for legal analysis “. The arrests of the three men intervene more than a year after the opening of an investigation into the Notre-Dame de Betharram affair, itself driven by numerous deposits of complaints.
The placement in police custody of three men “is the culmination of 15 months of work and decades of waiting for the victims” for his part reacted Alain Esquerre on Bfmtv. “This is a huge release. The next step is the designation of an investigating judge,” added the spokesperson for the collective of victims of Notre-Dame de Betharram. The current police custody has a duration of 24 hours and can be renewed for the same duration. On the other hand, due to the age of police custody and the seniority of the facts, the procedure could be lifted before the opening of a potential judicial and de facto information, the designation of an investigating judge.
If the vast majority of the facts denounced are affected by the prescription, a source close to the investigation entrusts the Parisian that “the investigators and the Pau prosecution nevertheless identified at least one rape likely to be the subject of a trial “. If this were to be confirmed, justice could then attach all of the facts prescribed under the principle of seriality. In other words, bypass the principle of prescription, the main obstacle in the Betharram case. “Something very strong happens,” says Alain Esquerre, spokesperson for the collective of victims.