Former French senator found guilty of drugging MP

A former French senator has been discovered responsible of spiking an MP’s drink with ecstasy so as to sexually assault her.

Joel Guerriau acquired a four-year jail sentence – 18 months of that are to be served behind bars – and, in accordance with native media, was ordered to pay Sandrine Josso €5,000 (£4,348) in damages for emotional misery.

Guerriau, now 68, had invited Josso, 50, to his Paris flat in November 2023. He later admitted serving her a drink spiked with MDMA, however maintained it was an accident and denied having any intention of assaulting her.

Shortly after the decision on Tuesday, Josso mentioned it was a “large reduction”, AFP stories. In the meantime, Guerriau’s legal professionals mentioned he would enchantment.

In response to courtroom paperwork quoted by French media, Josso mentioned she had gone to Guerrieau’s dwelling three years in the past to have fun his re-election when she began feeling unwell after ingesting from a champagne glass.

“I had gone to go to a good friend and I found an aggressor,” she mentioned on Monday whereas giving proof within the trial.

“He checked out me insistently, I might by no means seen him that means. I did not wish to present him my weak point, as a result of I used to be fearful that if I instructed him I wasn’t feeling effectively, he would’ve pressured me to lie down.”

Josso recalled managing to go away the flat and, with the assistance of a colleague, went to hospital the place a toxicology report confirmed her blood had 3 times the leisure dose of MDMA.

Guerriau instructed the courtroom he had been going by way of a interval of despair, and had meant to take the drug himself the night time earlier than. He didn’t find yourself doing so and by accident supplied the glass containing MDMA to Josso the next night, he mentioned.

“I really feel sorry for Sandrine,” Guerriau instructed the courtroom in Paris. “I’m disgusted with myself, with my recklessness and my stupidity.”

He added: “We do not speak concerning the results of those medicine sufficient… All I would like is to talk out on the risks of those merchandise.”

Requested concerning the a number of web searches he made round ecstasy and the drug GHB, he mentioned he had no recollection.

“I used to be on the prepare, ideas and concepts simply come to you,” he instructed the courtroom, including authorities members wanted to indicate an curiosity in “all present occasions”.

Guerriau, a centre-right senator from the Horizons social gathering, was suspended when the fees in opposition to him got here to gentle. He resigned as a senator final October.

Josso, who continues to be an MP for the centre-right MoDem, has turn into a staunch campaigner in opposition to so-called chemical submission – drug-facilitated sexual assault.

“What I went by way of continues to be very painful,” Josso mentioned, chatting with French media forward of the trial starting.

“Psychological trauma looks like being frozen in time… I bounce on the slightest factor. I’ve turn into very weak.”

Josso has gone on to hitch an affiliation in opposition to chemical submission, arrange by Caroline Darian – the daughter of Dominique Pelicot, who in 2024 was discovered responsible of drugging his spouse Gisele and welcoming males to rape her of their dwelling for over a decade.

Josso was typically in courtroom throughout the Pelicot trial. This week, Darian and her brother David attended the proceedings within the Guerriau case.