France’s culture ministry is fined after senior official was charged with spiking women’s drinks so they would urinate in front of him
- A French official is accused of spiking women who came for job interviews
- The unnamed man was fired in 2019, but details of his legal case are not public
A Paris court fined the French Ministry of Culture after a senior official was accused of spiking women’s drinks to make them urinate in front of him.
The court’s ruling came three years after the human resources official at the culture ministry, identified as D.B., was charged with sexual assault, privacy violations and drug offences.
He was fired in early 2019 after being caught but the details of his legal case, which started the same year, have not been made public.
The offences are said to have happened when the women attended job interviews at the ministry between 2009 and 2018.
The ministry was ordered to pay 12,000 euros (£10,681) plus 1,500 euros in legal costs to a woman who had applied for a job and met with D.B.
A Paris court fined the French Ministry of Culture (pictured) after a senior official was accused of spiking women’s drinks to make them urinate in front of him
He took one woman for a walk in the Tuileries Garden’ (pictured) near the ministry headquarters
‘At the start of the interview he offered her a cafe, which she drank, and then invited her for a walk outside in the Tuileries Garden’ near the ministry headquarters, the court said in its ruling.
‘Rapidly feeling pain and a strong need to urinate,’ the woman was forced to go to the bathroom in front of D.B. under a bridge, and was later hospitalised with a urinary tract infection, the court said.
An investigation found that D.B. had similarly preyed on dozens of women over a period of several years, keeping on his computer a list of his victims and often photos of them urinating, though the ministry said it had not been aware of his druggings.
But the plaintiff accused the ministry of being partly to blame, due to ‘poor organisation of the culture ministry’s services and the absence of any process for protecting the victims and hearing their claims.’
Six female ministry colleagues also came forward to denounce similar attacks and will also be compensated as part of the court’s ruling, though the amounts were not disclosed.
The culture minister when the case emerged, Franck Riester, said at the time he was ‘floored’ by what he called the ‘crazy case of a pervert’.
D.B. later admitted to the newspaper Liberation that he had drugged ’10 or 20′ women and claimed that ‘I wished I had been stopped earlier’.
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