Rosie DiManno: Guilty verdict in French police gang rape trial a testament to Canadian woman´s perseverence
(The Star Toronto Raptors)

They were heroes. Now they’re convicted rapists.A pair of elite anti-terrorism French cops were on Thursday found guilty in the gang rape of a Canadian tourist five years ago at police headquarters in Paris.36 Quai des Orfèvres: A fabled address, the building — known simply as “36� — has made appearances in movies and crime fiction.That’s where Emily Spanton told court a group of off-duty officers she’d met took her for a private tour on April 22, 2014, following a night of heavy drinking at a nearby Irish pub.Eighty minutes later, around 4 a.m., Spanton stumbled barefoot down the stairs. She’d lost her tights and her glasses and carried her shoes. She was covered in bruises, injuries which would be documented.And as Spanton repeatedly told cops at the front desk, she’d just been raped by two, perhaps three officers, the conversation stilted by both sides unable to understand the other’s language.Read more: Two elite Paris police officers guilty of gang-raping Canadian tourist‘I don’t want to live in a world where I’m silent’: French courts back Canadian’s rape allegationsAll this time later, after years of tortuous legal proceedings — charges filed, charges dropped, a humiliating re-enactment of the crime at another hearing, crucial evidence disappearing, deleted, destroyed, a massive undertaking to collect blood samples from more than 100 officers who worked in the building for the purpose of obtaining DNA, charges reimposed — the two accused have been found guilty by a judge and jury, after eight hours of deliberation, and sentenced to seven years in prison.The two officers are members of the crack Brigade de recherche et d’intervention unit of France’s national police — specializing in anti-terrorism and anti-gang operations — are revered in the country, especially since BRI stormed the Bataclan theatre during a co-ordinated terr ...