Yannick Poligné was indicted on November 6 and remanded in custody in Paris. The abbot who officiates near Rennes is suspected of having drugged and raped a young boy.
Yannick Poligné sleeps in prison. The abbot, who officiates in the parish of Saint-Louis-Marie in Brocéliande, in Montfort-sur-Meu, in the diocese of Rennes, Dol and Saint-Malo, was arrested last week and indicted on November 6 in the outcome of his interrogation by the judicial police. This Thursday, November 10, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that the magistrates in charge of the case had also placed him in pre-trial detention, given the suspicions hanging over him. The 52-year-old man is accused of “aggravated rape of a minor”, “endangering others” and provocation of a minor to use narcotics”. information from RTLwhich gives more details on the reasons why the investigating judges placed him in prison.
According to information from the radio, which quotes a source familiar with the matter, the priest Yannick Poligné met the minor, aged 15, on November 2 in Paris, to have an exchange on the Grindr dating application. According to the accounts obtained by the investigators, the abbot would have brought the boy up to a hotel room and would have offered to use drugs, in particular MDMA and a derivative of GHB. According to the boy’s deposition, the priest obtained sex from him described as brutal and added that he did not remember all the facts. On the morning of November 3, the teenager, sick and prone to vomiting, called some friends. Through them, the firefighters quickly found the boy to take him to the hospital.
According to RTL, the respondent acknowledged the facts to investigators, indicating that he regularly travels to Paris to have sex with young men in the capital. He would have added that he never knew that the young man was a minor, and was content to have seen on his dating application that he was an adult. A source familiar with the matter, quoted by RTL, also indicates that the priest indicated that he was HIV positive. Information put on the table, while the respondent added that sexual intercourse was not protected. The clergyman seemed to play down the seriousness of the facts, still according to the same source, thinking that the triple therapy he follows “considerably reduces the viral load” and the risk of transmission of the disease.
Mgr Pierre d’Ornellas, bishop of the diocese of Rennes, published a press release this Thursday, November 10, relayed by Ouest France, to react to this detention. “Above all, I want to assure the victim of my compassion and my full support. I understand and share the pain, anger or amazement that the faithful and the priests of the diocese may experience, and especially the parishioners of the parish of Saint -Louis-Marie in Brocéliande and other places where he exercised a pastoral ministry. […] Many have trusted him and feel betrayed”, he wrote, adding: “I assured civil justice of the full collaboration of the Diocese, and reported the facts to Rome to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in order to launch a canonical procedure in parallel, adds Bishop d’Ornellas. I repeat my availability for all those who will need it. I remind you that anyone can be received and listened to by the listening cell of the Diocese of Rennes (02 99 14 35 53) or with the independent service France Victimes (01 41 83 42 17)”.