A retired French school teacher was sentenced to 10 years in prison in French Polynesia for raping four boys in a judgement hailed by prosecutors as a warning to other abusers. “This is a just sentence and a strong signal for paedophiles who could be tempted to try to come to Polynesia to take advantage of the gentle nature of the children,” the lawyer for the victims, Thinaud Millet, said after Thursday’s ruling by a Papeete court. Jean-Claude Alcaras, 71, a former teacher of French and English, was arrested in June 2010 after being found with a nine-year-old boy in a toilet at Tahiti’s international airport. He had travelled to Tahiti several times from 2001 as a sex tourist. Alcaras has admitted abusing some 30 children but investigators believe the number of victims could have been as high as 200, based on his testimony.
