FRANCE: A Spanish man accused of the rape and murder of a British schoolgirl once said the "ideal age for a woman" was 11 or 12, a former acquaintance told a French court yesterday.
Mr Francisco Arce Montes (54) is on trial in the French city of Rennes for the 1996 killing of 13-year-old Caroline Dickinson as she lay in bed in a youth hostel in Brittany. He admits sexual assault but not murder.
Mr Eduardo Suarez, who met Mr Arce Montes in the accused man's hometown of Gijon in 1997, said the defendant had shown him several pictures of young girls.
"He showed me a photo of a young girl who was 12 and who he said was called Caroline. He was really proud of it," Mr Suarez told the court.
"Arce Montes said he met her in Brittany while she was playing in a park or a garden near a hostel," he said.
Caroline was attacked and suffocated eight years ago as she lay in a youth hostel dormitory in the town of Pleine-Fougères, in Brittany. She was sharing the room with four other girls, who were not disturbed by the attacker.
A psychologist and a psychiatrist who examined Mr Arce Montes after his extradition to France from the US described the defendant as immature, egocentric and perverted.
"He wants to see himself as a seducer and is particularly manipulative, with a certain taste for risk," Dr Fulbert Jadech told the court.