French couple sentenced for sex video at Canada WWI memorial 24/07/2008 00:00

A French couple was given a four-month suspended prison sentence and made to pay EUR 1 in damages for making a porn video at a WWI memorial.

24 July 2008

LILLE - A French couple was given a four-month suspended prison sentence and made to pay EUR 1 in damages to the Canadian state for making a porn video at a World War I memorial, officials said Wednesday.  

The verdict came just six months after another couple were fined for taking nude photographs of themselves at the same memorial at Vimy in northern France, which pays tribute to the 60,000 Canadians who died in the Great War.

In the latest ruling Tuesday by a court in the town of Arras, the married couple in their thirties, who put the video on a paying website, were also fined EUR 500 each after they were found guilty of exhibitionism.

The symbolic EUR 1 in damages was ordered because the Canadian state was a civil plaintiff in the case.

"The memorial has been known for a long time as a place where exhibitionism and voyeurism is common," prosecutor Elise Bozzolo told AFP.

The memorial, two huge pylons that can be seen for miles around, was created in memory of the April 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge, a costly victory for Canada which helped shape the former British colony's national identity and now draws around half a million visitors each year.

[AFP / Flickr Contributor Scouse_and_Jules / Expatica]