The Assize Court of the North plunges from Monday, January 9 in a camera containing abuse of rare cruelty.
Six individuals appear in Douai, accused of having abused a two-and-a-half-year-old child in December 2018, four of whom are on trial for "
torture or act of barbarism
".
The victim's mother was fired for not having rescued him when she learned of the facts.
The defendants face seven to twenty years in prison.
Three weeks of artificial coma
The case started in December 2018, when Christine P. took her son Joris* to the hospital in serious condition.
The child then presents traces of violence all over the body, from the faces to the genitals, fractures to the pelvis, to the tibia as well as a cranial trauma.
The caregivers place Joris in an artificial coma, in which he will remain for three weeks and immediately alert the authorities.
Christine P. is taken into custody.
Before the investigators, she presents herself as a mother overwhelmed by a supposedly restless child, which would have pushed her to entrust him for two weeks to a couple of friends, according to
20 Minutes
.
Read alsoIn France, every five days, a child is killed by one of his parents, warns Unicef
It is at the home of the latter, in Auberchicourt (North), that several evenings of martyrdom will take place.
Hosted for two weeks in their pavilion, Joris will suffer multiple violence by the couple of friends as well as two other relatives.
The details are revealed by our colleagues from Le
Parisien
, who list
“punches, feet, broom, rolling pin or even electric fly swatter”.
The child is fed on the ground and forced to eat animal food or his own excrement.
A tragedy that could have been avoided?
During the last evening at the torturers' home, Christine P. was present but did not react immediately.
Yet her son is forced to move on all fours, a wooden splint made for his leg.
It is only the next day that she realizes the facts and finally drops Joris off at the hospital.
Several child protection associations are also wondering about a potential dysfunction of public services.
"
Numerous alert beams should have mobilized the police and social services more on the dangers that weighed on Joris, both within the family unit and in the close entourage
", denounced in particular the association "L' Blue child”, constituted as a civil party.
The mother was indeed the subject of a socio-educational follow-up for traces of violence on the older brother of Joris.
But no safeguards have been put in place.
Read alsoContainment raises concerns about child abuse
Sébastien B., accused of having been the driving force "
recognizes and regrets
" the abuse inflicted on the child, testifies his lawyer Me Loïc Bussy to the
Parisian
.
He would have himself experienced violence, including sexual violence, committed by his stepfather when he was young.
Joris, who has since suffered from neurological damage, and his brother have both been placed in foster care.
“
It is miraculous that Joris is still alive
”, underlined with our colleagues from
20 Minutes
, Laurence Micallef-Napoly, lawyer for “The blue child”.
*Name has been changed.
