Overview
- The trial of 37-year-old Pierre Garitte is underway in Strasbourg with hearings continuing through June 10 and the defendant appearing free under judicial supervision.
- Prosecutors have sent Garitte to the cour criminelle du Bas-Rhin on charges of eight rapes and 23 sexual assaults affecting 29 patients and say the offences carry an aggravating circumstance for abusing professional authority.
- Several former patients testified that a repeated method involved the practitioner placing his hand over theirs to guide contact with intimate areas during consultations in his Eschau cabinet.
- Witnesses described lasting harm and a loss of trust in caregivers, using words such as 'used' and 'soiled', while some said they signed a so-called consent letter they now view as a way the practitioner sought to excuse his actions.
- Court reporting notes evidentiary and personal complexities: some women declined to join the case as civil parties because they still doubt what happened or fear the psychological toll of formal proceedings.