After years of silence, Joséphine has decided to speak about it for the first time. “He touched our bottoms, put his hands under our tee-shirts, kissed us on the lips, and he was in the changing rooms checking us out,” she says. “He once asked me to help him clean the [horse] boxes and once the horse was out he came up behind me and touched my breasts. I wasn't afraid of violence from him, but I was afraid that if I rejected him he'd get rid of me from the club and tell stories about me.”
Joséphine says she never dared to make a complaint against him. But the riding instructor concerned, Loïc Caudal, has since been convicted twice. On September 16th 2013 he was given a 15-day suspended prison sentence for sexual abuse of a minor. Then on November 20th 2017 he was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence and put on probation for the sexual assault of three minors.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
His lawyer, Laure-Ingrid Morainville, said that Caudial has since been banned from working as an instructor and from contact with minors. The prefect's office in the Hauts-de-Seine département or county next to Paris also confirmed that his professional permit as sports instructor has been removed after his convictions. Loïc Caudal did not respond to Mediapart's questions.
Joséphine, who is now 27, was aged between 14 and 15 at the time of the events she describes. “Loïc used to ask for kisses on the lips in exchange for [us riding] the horses that we really liked,” she says. “If you didn't do what he wanted you got lumbered with the worst mount.”
Late one day the riding instructor sent her a message. “I'm on a tennis court, I'd certainly put my racket up you.” Joséphine explains: “I was 14, I knew nothing about sexuality. I wondered if this was a physical threat so I showed it to my father.”
The teenager never returned to the equestrian club in the west Paris suburb of Suresnes. It was only through old riding friends that a few years later she learnt about Loïc Caudal's arrest and says she was shocked to come across him at equestrian events. “I saw him twice at competitions, once in Brittany, another time at Jardy [editor's note, one of the biggest equestrian centres in the Paris region]. He gave us huge smiles as if he was amnesic … After that he got into a federation lorry. He was at competition venues for the Fédération Française d’Équitation [editor's note, the French Horse Riding Federation],” says Joséphine.
In fact, despite his first conviction in 2013 Loïc Caudal had remained a riding instructor at the club in Suresnes until April 2014. He is believed to have been sacked for having repeated rows in front of clients with his former partner, who was also an instructor at the time.
In 2014 he was hired by the Fédération Française d’Équitation (FFE) where according to several sources he worked until 2019, driving publicity vehicles and putting up signage, especially at major tournaments both for adults and children. His second conviction in 2017, which included a ban from being near minors, does not appear to have made any difference to his work status.
The fact that the Fédération Française d’Équitation hired the former instructor raises serious doubts over recent declarations by Serge Lecomte, who is president both of the FFE and the riding club at Suresnes where Caudal had worked. Lecomte said: “Under my presidency all facts relating to violence, deviance or sexual abuse that have been referred to us have led systematically, and without delay, to the introduction of protective measures.”
Contacted first via his riding club and then the federation, Serge Lecomte was for a long time reluctant to talk about the Loïc Caudal case. In the end, after several weeks of repeated questions, the clearly annoyed FFE president called Mediapart. He swore that he had “never been informed of the ins and outs of this affair. Never and by no one, not even the victims!” he exclaimed.
When was asked how the president of an equestrian club and a federation could, without his knowledge, employ in his organisation a man convicted for sexual assault and sexual abuse against minors, Lecomte said: “Hang on, I've got better things to do than to call the lawyer, to call the judge, I sacked him, that's the end of it! Moreover, you know full well that I manage several clubs and I am not always at Suresnes.” The day-to-day manager at the Suresnes equestrian club, Salomé Pitault, was however aware of Loïc Caudal's legal cases.
Serge Lecomte meanwhile insisted that that he has known nothing and that he had only learned about the case after the “telephone calls that you made to the club. They quickly came and reported it to me.” However, when Mediapart first started to mention the affair Serge Lecomte had dropped his guard and spoken about two convictions, even though we had never given this detail to him or indeed anyone else at the club.
The FFE president initially sought to evade this point and then qualified his comments: “In fact, I knew that there were multiple problems with several girls. But I only knew that afterwards.” Serge Lecomte struggled to specify what he meant by “afterwards” but insisted that it was very recently and well after Loïc Caudal left his federation job in 2019. Before putting the phone down he said: “You're talking to me about a case which is in the past. It's all behind us!”
Hotline for victims
The federation's managing director, Frédéric Bouix, did not deny that his president was aware of Caudal's conviction. Speaking to Mediapart about the case he said: “Does this mean that this person can never work again in his life? The person was banned from exercising a supervisory activity in sport under the sports code and the federation hired him as a driver, moreover it was ...uh…. in the context of working with his spouse. Because his spouse was already working at the federation, which explained why he was recruited,” said Frédéric Bouix.
Inside the Fédération Française d’Équitation staff who were aware of the affair said they were shocked how Caudal was hired in this way. “I couldn't believe it,” said one employee, who asked to remain anonymous. “When Serge Lecomte says that he punishes this kind of abuse severely it's untrue,” said Joséphine.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
In February 2020, and amid considerable publicity, the FFE set up an external telephone hotline run by psychologists, which provides victims with someone to talk to in confidence. Since it was set up the FFE says that they have received around 20 calls, six of which involved serious claims. The FFE also used its Facebook page to announce the new hotline and that post received a number of comments, some by anonymous victims. The name of Loïc Caudal cropped up quite often and Frédéric Bouix confirmed that the FFE was aware of that.
Meanwhile, former rider Amélie Quéguiner describes such cases as “terribly commonplace in horse riding”. It was she who first raised the alarm at the start of February 2020. The ex-competitor, who today runs an equestrian centre in the Dordogne in south-west France, said that she was raped by her instructor for ten years, from the age of eleven. She has since made formal complaints against two new coaches and said that she gathered numerous testimonies from young girls and teenagers who, like her, are victims of child sex abuse.
On February 5th Amélie Quéguiner questioned Serge Lecomte via social networks and demanded that he took real action to tackle the problem. In fact the case of the Suresnes equestrian club and the example of Amélie Quéguiner together highlight one of the central problems in the close-knit French equestrian world; it is a closed and protected community where the attackers too often have “complete immunity”, says Amélie Quéguiner.
Gregory Pieux knows this better than anyone. The son of the famous jump jockey Christophe Pieux, well-known in France for being champion jump jockey fifteen times, describes the wall of silence he encountered. “It's a closed world,” he said. “People don't want to speak, everyone wants to have a career and become the best. If you want to ride the best horses and if you know something you're not going to say anything. No one speaks.”
On July 23rd 2018 he made a formal legal complaint alleging that a man called José Bruneau de la Salle had sexually assaulted him when he was aged nine. Bruneau de la Salle is a major racehorse owner, a former associate member of horse-racing governing body France Galop and also a friend of the Pieux family. “One evening we were in the same bed in the guest room at my father's house,” recalled Grégory. “He tried to masturbate me. My reaction at the time was to try to act as if I was asleep. His face wasn't in front of me, I had turned away ...”
He said that the man abused him for more than two years. Grégory said that he eventually found the strength to make a complaint thanks to another young man, Jeremy Garamond, who says he was also a victim of José Bruneau de la Salle at about the same age. “One day I was talking about my childhood trauma to a person who knows the riding world well,” said Jeremy. “I revealed to him that it was someone in the world of racing in Normandy [editor's note, in northern France] who did that to me. And straight away he replied 'José Bruneau de la Salle?'. I realised that everyone in the horse world knew. It's appalling, everyone knew and no one said anything!”
José Bruneau de la Salle has since been placed under formal investigation – one step short of charges being brought – for the alleged sexual assault of minors and placed under judicial supervision. According to the lawyers for the two young men, Olivier Pardo and Baptiste de Fresse de Monvaland of the law firm Opulus, José Bruneau de la Salle faces up to ten years in jail and a fine of 150,000 if charged and found guilty. Bruneau de la Salle's lawyer, Daniel Siksous, said his client “categorically rejects the accusations brought against him and is reserving his explanations for the investigating magistrate”.
'Danielle', not her real name, has also made a complaint. In her case she filed the report on December 16th 2019 against a riding instructor called Jean-Christophe Brionne for “rape committed by a person abusing the authority conferred on them by their position”. At the time she was aged 14. “You know full well that by speaking you're going to be discredited,” she said. “I understand those who are in the industry and want to stay in it. They don't want to get blacklisted, to no longer get given a ride or get beaten up. For anyone who has family in the horse world, who has horses, who has their social network in this world, it's impossible for them to speak out,” said Danielle.
'In France, pupils and riding instructors still sleep in the same bedroom'
In December 2019 'Alice', not her real name, reported the same instructor for seven rapes committed between May and September 2017. After one suicide attempt and numerous sessions with a psychiatrist she is now slowly trying to rebuild her life far away from the equestrian world. “I couldn't ride again in France,” she says. “I miss it enormously but I've made a choice. I've since sold my horse, I don't sleep, I'm on meds. I'm unable to have a normal life. But you know, having hands put on your bottom is very commonplace in that world. Jean-Christophe Brionne used to do that in front of everyone, his wife and people around used to laugh, everyone thought it was quite normal to say to a girl of 14: 'You've got big breasts' or 'I'd like you mount on top of me like that' or 'If you win this competition you're entitled to it doggy style this evening'. It's commonplace in riding,” says Alice. “I think it's due to the fact that there's a big concentration of girl pupils and male instructors. And they enjoy themselves with children and teenagers.”
Danielle agrees. “It was common around me at the time,” she says. “At competitions you saw lots of instructors who were cheating on their wives at the weekend with pupils who were minors.”
Having been taken into police custody and then placed under formal investigation over alleged rape, Jean-Christophe Brionne committed suicide on December 14th 2019. He had a reputation in the equestrian competition world of being an excellent instructor and for helping his pupils reach a high level. People in his immediate circle still defend him and even now Danielle and Alice are subject to major psychological pressure. “His wife put out a statement on Facebook. He died a martyr and everyone now treats us as murderers,” says Alice.
Alice says that following the death of her presumed attacker she has gone through the full range of emotions, from guilt at having killed him to anger that the dead man will never face justice. “Not long after I arrived to do sports studies with him he started asking me my age and talking to me about sex,” says Alice. “Then one evening when we were both at his place he opened the door of my bedroom and threw himself on me. It happened seven times during the months I was at his place. [During these assaults] I wasn't there, I disassociated my body, I was in another world. I was completely absent, I didn't move. And I will never be able to get justice.”
Though the two young women had both testified that they had been raped, this did not stop tributes in the form of a minute's silence being paid to the late instructor in the pony category – which reserved for children – at some equestrian competitions. This was despite the fact that he had been “under investigation for paedophilia!” says Danielle in exasperation.
The victims of paedophile crimes in the equestrian world often refer to their attacker's charisma and control. Jeremy Garamond, who describes his alleged attacker José Bruneau de la Salle as a respected man in racing circles, notes: “His intelligence fascinated me. He played on each person's fears in an incredible manner.”
There has been a string of similar cases of paedophile crimes within the French equestrian world, yet the sector is not equipped to fight effectively against these predators either organisationally or legally.
In fact, anyone can open an equestrian centre without affiliating to the Fédération Française d’Équitation. And an instructor dismissed from a federation member club for paedophile crimes can still get work in a non-affiliated equestrian organisation. “We advocate a sport which is organised completely under the aegis of the federation, for greater control,” said the FFE's managing director Frédéric Bouix. “But the tendency is more towards deregulation of the sporting system and crushing the federations, towards less supervision. Unfortunately the state of the regulations encourages that. It's a recurring issue and one we often warn the Ministry of Sport about.”
According to the FFE executive, simply placing a legal obligation on individual clubs will not be enough to tackle the problem of paedophile crimes in the equestrian world. “Unfortunately clubs affiliated to the federation can find themselves [unknowingly having an instructor who has been convicted for child sex abuse] for the simple and good reason that the instructors' files are not linked to the FIJAIS [editor's note, the sex offenders' list the Fichier judiciaire automatisé des auteurs d’infractions sexuelles et violentes] criminal records.”
There is also a question mark over the training of riding instructors. To teach in an equestrian club now an instructor must have a BBJEPS ('brevet professionnel de la jeunesse, de l’éducation populaire et du sport') state diploma. Sophie Soulez Larivière, who runs the Killola Stud equestrian club in Normandy, has a BBJEPS but also an equivalent qualification from Ireland. The Irish version is, however, very different from the French version, she says. “For my [Irish] diploma I was trained in 'child protection',” she said. “That involves teaching the instructors how to behave with minors. In what circumstances can one take a child in one's car? Where can you touch them to show them positions? That's very codified. The shoulder, the upper arms, the back and the feet are permitted, and for other areas the instructor must ask the minor's permission.”
Every alert from parents or pupils who are minors are taken seriously by the Irish equestrian federation, she says, and preventative measure are taken to keep the instructor in question at a distance. “In France pupils and instructors can still sleep in the same bedroom,” said Sophie Soulez Larivière. “In Ireland you can get your instructor's licence taken away in a day for the slightest ambiguity. France is not on the same level at all and all these dysfunctions in the approach towards minors lead to these sordid stories.”
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter