French serial killer magistrates in negligence probe
Four former investigating magistrates, facing allegations of negligence because a serial killer slipped through the cracks of France’s justice system, faced a disciplinary panel today.
A report by the High Judicial Council alleges the magistrates failed their duties in the case of Emile Louis, a former bus driver who in 2000 admitted to killing seven mentally handicapped women in eastern France in the late 1970s.
The former magistrates - Rene Meyer, Bertrand Daillie, Jacques Cazals and Daniel Stilinovic - worked in the eastern city of Auxerre in the Yonne region.
The magistrates, summoned to appear before the council’s disciplinary panel, face allegations of negligence, failing their judicial duties and carrying out hasty proceedings in the Louis case from 1984 to the mid-1990s.
In a 61 page report, the council faulted the magistrates for ‘‘inertia,’’ ‘‘total inaction’’ and disregard for information provided by police in an investigation.
The four were still magistrates in Auxerre when British student Joanna Parrish disappeared in May 1990 and the circumstances of her murder investigation are believed to be part of the hearing.
She was teaching English at an Auxerre school while taking a year out from Leeds University.
Joanna, from Newnham-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, went missing after meeting a man who answered a newspaper advert she had placed offering English lessons. A day later her naked body was found floating in the river Yonne.
Her parents believe her murder was never properly investigated with obvious leads ignored and crucial DNA and witness reports lost or missing.
The hearing is to end on Wednesday.
Meyer, who was chief state prosecutor in Auxerre from 1979 to 1986, was the only defendant who did not appear for the hearing. In a letter to the panel, he said he was out of the country and contested the allegations against him.
