Gamertag Radio
What the……. Full translation: CORRUPTION OF UNDERAGE CHILD – They met each other through a war game on the Internet and fell in love with each other, but the teenager’s parents, worried, appealed to justice. The tribunal will give its decision on the 27th of September. Can a 33 year-old woman and a 15 year-old teenager become virtual lovers? That’s the question the judges from the Magistrate’s Court (‘tribunal correctionnel’) have to answer, after reviewing a never-before-seen case of ‘corruption of underage child’. A dossier which inception dates back to 2008, on the MSN messaging service of one of the most famous video games – Call of Duty. A war game apparently unlikely to spark feelings, which had Céline – 33 years-old – start a platonic but terribly interfering relationship with Thomas (name changed for legal reasons), 15. The latter’s parents have filed a complaint and justice now has to settle the case. The youngster is waiting till he’s legal to live with her In late 2008, Thomas was an average teenager. Dwelling in the south of France, he spent a great part of his time on his computer. He joined a group of online players of Call of Duty. Soberly called ‘Team’ (they used the English word), the group was supposedly made of players of legal age only, with no ‘pyjamas’ (i.e. underage people in French videogame jargon). But Thomas made a place for himself. On top of the military missions provided by the game, he talked through MSN with Shoot, Céline’s nickname. The woman lives hundreds of kilometers away from him in the Nièvre area. She does not keep her mature age secret. In the course of a few weeks, Thomas and Céline sent each other more and more SMS, phone calls and MSN messages, sometimes in the middle of the night. However, in spring of 2009, while Thomas and Céline live a long-distance relationship, the teenager’s parents file a complaint because they were worried of the importance taken by the story. The police first checked the hundreds of calls and messages, then letters and even pictures exchanged. On one of the pictures Céline is bare-chested. They quickly identified where the related computer was located and found Céline, a divorced mother who recently became a grandmother. Interrogated by the police on what happened in spring 2009, Céline acknowledged the facts and took responsibility for the long-distance relationship. She has only seen Thomas through pictures, he’s almost as old as her eldest daughter, but she is certain she loves him. As for the boy, his grades have sunk but he claimed before the policemen that he was in love with Céline despite the age gap. He’s only waiting to be legal before going to leave with her. During the investivation, Céline and Thomas both went through psychological examinations which demonstrate that they have some sort of ‘fragility’ in common. According to the expert, Thomas’s fragility is bound to the usual troubles of adolescence. Nothing seems to be able to hold back their feelings for one another. Thomas even wrote to the tribunal, in Céline’s defence. Will the judges punish Céline? At tuesday’s audience -which took place in Nevers- the prosecutor demanded that she be discharged. He deemed the facts ‘morally reprehensible’ but the case does not constitute ‘corruption of an underage child’ (‘corruption de mineur’) in the law. The teenager’s parents’ lawyer said that one had to ‘take distance from the virtuality of the facts’ (‘se détacher de la virtualité des faits’). ‘There are consequences which are all too real for him and for his relatives.’ he adds. ‘If a 35 year-old man did the same thing with a 15 year-old girl, I don’t think we’d have asked ourselves so many questions,’ the lawyer said. The tribunal will reveal its decision on the 27th of September. Thanks Neogaf for the translation.
