Judicial information was opened this Friday, February 21, by the Pau prosecution for one of the police custody in the Betharram case. The other two arrested men were released, the facts being prescribed.
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.
This Friday, February 21, one of the three men placed in police custody was referred to the judicial court of Pau with a view to being presented to an investigating judge. Judicial information is now opened by the Pau prosecution aimed at rapes per person with authority between 1991 and 1994 and sexual assaults in 2004 concerning him within the grounds of Notre-Dame de Betharram.
“”The man arrived at the Pau justice palace, his head hidden under a jacket, around 2 p.m. He is a secular, a former supervisor within the Catholic institution implicated by several complainants “, specifies Here Béarn Bigorre. He was still in office last year before being dismissed. His placement in pre -trial detention was required by the Pau prosecution. A second 69 -year -old man was released according to the local media. As a reminder, Father Henri L. was 94 years old was released on Thursday. Both benefit from the prescription of the facts.
Three men in police custody, two released
As a reminder, Wednesday, February 19, three men born in 1931, in 1955 and in 1965 according to the magistrate’s details were placed in police custody: two former general supervisors and a Betharram supervisor, two laity 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, was released on Thursday. “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. Judicial information was therefore opened for his case. 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. He was released this Friday. 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.
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 intervened more than a year after the opening of an investigation into the Notre-Dame de Bétharram 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.