Lyhanna case: MP Taupiac demands systemic reform of justice system for child sexual abuse
A year after alerting authorities to shortcomings at Auch Tribunal, Gers MP David Taupiac links these failures to the death of 11-year-old Lyhanna.
Gers MP David Taupiac questions government after Lyhanna's death
The body of Lyhanna, 11 years old, was found on Thursday 4 June 2026 in the Gers department, not far from Fleurance. According to france3-regions.franceinfo.fr, the main suspect, Jérôme Barella, had been the subject of multiple complaints and reports of sexual violence without ever having been investigated by the justice system or gendarmes. For David Taupiac, Gers MP of the LIOT group (Liberties, Independents, Overseas and Territories), this tragedy is inseparable from the structural dysfunctions he was already denouncing a year earlier.
An ignored alert at Auch Tribunal
In April 2025, Taupiac submitted a written question to the National Assembly regarding the government after observing, when in contact with the Auch judicial court, a glaring deficit in magistrates — particularly those responsible for cases involving minors. The Cassiopée software, a tool for managing judicial files, presented recurring faults that sometimes forced postponement of hearings. Budgets had been reduced over several years.
The response from the Justice Ministry, received some months later, was intended to be reassuring: Cassiopée was "in development since 2024" and was to be improved, without a precise date; new magistrates were to be appointed in the following months. "This was the case for some, but the difficulties persisted," Taupiac states. He nonetheless praises the effort made by the magistrates in place: "For many months, they had to redouble their efforts to deal with cases with a reduced staff. I still tip my hat to them."
A complaint not processed for nine months
On 3 June 2026, the day before Lyhanna's body was discovered, Taupiac spoke during questions of current interest to the government, this time to question the Interior Minister. Media outlets had revealed that a complaint filed in August 2025 against Jérôme Barella had still not been processed nine months later, and that the suspect had not been heard as part of this procedure.
"I asked him to account for himself: if there were indeed dysfunctions, why had this file not been processed," explains the MP. He points to shared responsibility between the Justice Ministry, on the investigation side, and the Interior Ministry, on the side of interviews conducted by gendarmes.
"A dysfunction of justice in cases of sexual violence"
For Taupiac, the Lyhanna case is not an isolated incident: "This case reflects a broader problem at the national level. There is a dysfunction of justice in cases of sexual violence, particularly towards children, where there are far too long delays and dangerous individuals who remain at large."
He recalls that the Independent Commission on Sexual Violence (CIVIS) had formulated recommendations to the Justice Ministry as early as 2023: strengthen the collection of children's statements, create dedicated units, reduce processing delays. In 2024, a cross-party group of MPs worked on a legislative proposal aimed at combating "comprehensively" sexist and sexual violence against women and children. This bill was filed in December 2025.
A meeting with the Prime Minister still without response
On 2 June 2026, the day before Taupiac's intervention at the National Assembly, this group of MPs published an opinion piece in L'Humanité to once again request a meeting with the Prime Minister so that the legislative proposal would be placed on the agenda. "We still had not received a response," Taupiac emphasises. "I think that perhaps now we will have one."
The MP formulates a concrete demand: "We must create dedicated units and courts for sexual violence, particularly against children, and be able to collect children's statements, treat them as sacred and process them as a priority."
The role of the MP in the face of institutional failures
When asked about the means at his disposal, Taupiac describes a function of information gathering and reporting as much as political pressure. Present on the ground, he documents dysfunctions — lack of resources, personnel, materials — and reports them to the competent ministries. He also relies on organisations that identify problems at the national level to feed into legislative work.
The death of Lyhanna, which occurred in a context where reports against the main suspect were known to the authorities without having been fully investigated, now concentrates the debate on the capacity of the French judicial system to prioritise cases of sexual violence against children.
Source: Google News LU FR