Saint-Martin Pauline, Bouyssy Marie, O'Byrne Patrick
Service de Médecine Légale, Hôpital Trousseau, CHRU Tours, 37 044 Tours 9, France.
Med Sci Law. 2007 Oct;47(4):315-24. doi: 10.1258/rsmmsl.47.4.315.
We describe the medico-legal findings in a population of sexual assault cases assessed in an urban French referral centre, analyse the subsequent legal dispositions in each case and determine whether the characteristics of the assault and the medico-legal findings were associated with conviction of the assailant. We performed a retrospective study of medicolegal reports in all the sexual assault cases reported in Tours (France) during a seven-year period. We defined two groups of victims: children under 15 years old and victims aged 15 years or more. Legal outcomes were obtained from courtroom proceedings. The relationship between the outcomes and the circumstances of the case was analyzed by logistic regression. We enrolled a total of 756 cases during the study period. The mean age of the study population was 16.5 years and 68.3% of the cases involved children under 15 years old. In 57% of these cases, the assailant was a family member. 31.7% of all the victims were aged 15 years or more. The assailant was an acquaintance of the victim in 62.2% of the cases. Drug-facilitated assault was suspected in 2.9% of the cases. In 46.2% of the cases, formal criminal charges were not filed due to insufficient evidence; 36.3% of the assailants were convicted. Examination at the request of the police authorities and previous acquaintance of the assailant by the victim were significantly associated with conviction. Allegations of penetration, the presence of general body trauma and the presence of genital trauma were not necessarily associated with conviction. Medical examiners need to be circumspect when they record non-medical variables. Physical evidence of trauma was neither predictive nor essential for conviction. Successful prosecution depends on the quality of the testimony provided by the victim.
我们描述了在法国一个城市转诊中心评估的一系列性侵犯案件中的法医学调查结果，分析了每个案件随后的法律处置情况，并确定袭击的特征和法医学调查结果是否与袭击者被定罪有关。我们对法国图尔市在七年期间报告的所有性侵犯案件的法医学报告进行了回顾性研究。我们将受害者分为两组：15岁以下的儿童和15岁及以上的受害者。法律结果来自法庭诉讼程序。通过逻辑回归分析结果与案件情况之间的关系。在研究期间，我们共纳入了756例案件。研究人群的平均年龄为16.5岁，68.3%的案件涉及15岁以下的儿童。在这些案件中，57%的袭击者是家庭成员。所有受害者中有31.7%的年龄在15岁及以上。在62.2%的案件中，袭击者是受害者的熟人。2.9%的案件怀疑存在药物辅助性袭击。在46.2%的案件中，由于证据不足未提出正式刑事指控；36.3%的袭击者被定罪。应警方当局要求进行的检查以及受害者之前认识袭击者与定罪显著相关。关于性侵的指控、全身创伤的存在和生殖器创伤的存在不一定与定罪有关。法医在记录非医学变量时需要谨慎。创伤的物证对定罪既无预测性也非必需。成功起诉取决于受害者提供的证词质量。
