Outreau Trial

The Outreau trial was a 2004 criminal trial in Northern France on various counts of sexual abuse against children. The trial and the appeal trial revealed that the main witness for the prosecution, convicted for the abuse, had lied about the involvement of other suspects, who were in fact innocent. Several innocent suspects had nevertheless spent years jailed on remand and one had committed suicide.

The trials resulted in a national outrage in France, with journalists, politicians and the public opinion questioning how such a miscarriage of justice could happen, with innocent men and women being held for years in jail on unfounded suspicions. In January 2006, a parliamentary inquiry was created, with President Jacques Chirac calling the affair a "judicial disaster".