Connect to share and comment  French boat school founder jailed
12 years for sex abuse    Leonide Kameneff, 76, was on trial
with three former staff and crew for the rape and sexual abuse
of nine former pupils between 1981 and 1994.  Kameneff, a former
child psychotherapist, got the harshest sentence requested by
prosecutors, who had asked the Paris criminal court for minors
to jail him for 10 to 12 years.  Two of his former staff were
sentenced to six years in prison and a five-year suspended
sentence. The third, a former student who was 17 at the time of
the abuse involved, was acquitted.  Established in 1969, the
boat school hosted more than 400 French pupils, typically aged
11 or 12, over three decades on trips around the Mediterranean
and across the Atlantic.  In all, more than 30 complaints were
registered, but the statute of limitations had expired on a
number of them.  Kameneff admitted during the trial that he had
sexually abused three children, but denied being a paedophile.
He argued his behaviour