Industrial scale of abuse at elite Catholic school in France

Bétharram: 17 new complaints

Background.  

The school was founded by Saint Michel Garricoits and has associated with it the Shrine of Our Lady of Bétharram.  The image above "Our Lady of Bétharram protect our children" is poignant in the circumstances.

This Wednesday, July 23, the serious case of violence and sexual abuse at Bétharram was expanded with 17 new complaints filed with the Pau prosecutor's office by the victims' group and its spokesperson, Alain Esquerre. They concern acts committed between 1961 and 1993.

In total, 217 complaints have now been filed, involving 15 religious figures, 4 lay people (including three supervisors and a gym teacher), and 3 former students who were minors at the time of the events.

The victims' collective provides a chronology of the complaints filed in its press release:

January 31, 2024, 20 complaints were filed, including 5 for sexual violence

February 13, 2024, 13 complaints were filed, including 10 sexual complaints

April 23, 2024, 43 complaints were filed, including 23 sexual complaints, for a total of 76 complaints (including 38 sexual complaints)

July 9, 2024, 26 complaints were filed, including 12 sexual complaints, for a total of 102 complaints (including 50 sexual complaints)

During the summer and until January 2025, individual complaints were filed in small batches (10 complaints)

February 27, 2025, 40 complaints (including 18 sexual complaints)

April 3, 2025, 48 complaints (including 20 sexual complaints)

and today, July 23 2025, 17 additional complaints (including 10 sexual ones), bringing the total to 217 complaints.

He also reiterates the number of complaints against the main perpetrators of abuse, both lay and religious – only the former is still alive:

Damien SAGET is the subject of 105 complaints, including 34 for sexual assault and rape.

Father CARRICART is the subject of 32 complaints, including 27 for sexual assault and rape.

Father SEGUR is the subject of 13 complaints, including 10 for sexual assault and rape. The latter was posted to Côte d'Ivoire, where he is also accused of abuse by former parishioners.

The Principal of Beau Rameau Middle School (Bétharram) transferred

Furthermore, last June, the transfer of the lay principal of Beau Rameau Middle School – the new name of Bétharram Middle School since 2009 – was made public. The victims' collective then expressed its surprise and questions in a press release: "This decision raises many questions. Since the revelation of the facts that led to the formation of our collective—now composed of 210 victims who have filed complaints—neither Mr. Clerc nor the APEL du Beau Rameau have agreed to open a dialogue with the victims, despite several requests since October 2023, at a time when the collective still had only about ten members.

This persistent silence is all the more worrying given that Patrick Martin, a boarding school supervisor in Bétharram for nearly 40 years, notably under the authority of Romain Clerc until February 2024, is now in pretrial detention thanks to the collective's efforts. Although he benefits from the presumption of innocence, the alleged acts are serious and must be addressed with the utmost transparency." Finally, Mr. Clercq's transfer comes at a time when the school was being sued in the labor court by Patrick Martin from 2010 to 2022.

His transfer to Saint-Joseph d'Oloron sparked an immediate outcry from parents, who threatened to withdraw their children from the school: "There is absolutely no way we're going to tarnish the image of Saint-Jo," reacted Valérie Santos, mother of a 6th-grade student in Oloron. "When I saw the man's name, I did an internet search and I was shocked. Mr. Waroux's departure didn't seem very Catholic to us—sorry for the expression. The announcement was late and very sudden, and we received no explanation. We don't want him setting foot in this school." 

Vague explanations surrounding the continued employment of an abusive supervisor at Bétharram

A petition has been launched, and although the person concerned has tried to put out the fire in the local press, it seems that the start of the school year in Oloron is likely to be complicated. He claimed that he "covered up nothing.** We reported the incident to the courts or to the parents. We scrupulously followed the procedure." But the local radio station qualifies this: "Romain Clercq refuses to say precisely whether it was violence or sexual assault."

Moreover, his explanations for the continued employment of an abusive supervisor at the Bétharram boarding school – and still in office when the affair broke out – are more vague: "I am full of compassion for the victims. I arrived in 2011, and I received no complaints from families, no reports that would have allowed me to take a closer look at this guard. And when the victims' group alerted me, within 48 hours, we made sure this guard left the facility. It may have been a long time coming for them, but at the same time, for 13 years, I had no complaints against this guard.

According to our information, following the publication of Mr. Delbos' testimony in 2017 in the République des Pyrénées—where he recalled the abuse suffered at the hands of Father Lamasse, still alive today—the supervisor in question disappeared from the establishment's records, even though he continued to hold office at the boarding school. And in recent years, there have been several complaints or reports related to Bétharram, particularly for incidents that took place at the boarding school, cases that were quickly dismissed. Perhaps the parents of Saint-Joseph d'Oloron are right to be concerned...

Source

See also "A Supermarket for Sexual Predators"