Le Figaro Nantes
The hearing got off to a bad start.
The outcome was better.
Ghislaine N. appeared this Friday before the Nantes judicial court for kidnapping a minor child from the hands of Loire-Atlantique Child Welfare.
On June 23, 2023, she fled from the hospital with her infant.
When she learned of the placement of her daughter born 12 days previously, and convinced that she had not committed any act of abuse contrary to the suspicions of professionals, she chose to leave the premises.
Finding herself face to face with her baby, alone in a cradle, crying, had finally convinced her.
After leaving her things under a bridge, she went to her mother's house, on the outskirts of Nantes, before being found there by the gendarmes the same evening, breastfeeding.
And end up in police custody.
Nine months later, it was before the courts that she clarified the injustice of which she considered herself a victim.
Without a lawyer, the 26-year-old Cameroonian was initially severely reprimanded by the president of the court.
Having left to fill a bottle of water when she was expected, at the end of an endless morning dedicated to cases of domestic violence, she did not attract the goodwill of the magistrate.
His
“insolent attitude”
did not fail to be criticized when a nervous laugh escaped.
Falling changing table
But very quickly, another emotion came to take its place: tears flowed for long minutes during which the young mother, who came alone, confided without restraint.
Her daughter was at the nursery during this time, preventing her from attending the deliberations and once again triggering the ire of the room.
“I arrived of my own free will on June 16, 2023 around 3 p.m. at the Nantes University Hospital.
My daughter fell because I made a serious mistake.
It was negligence but it was not intentional
,” begins Ghislaine N., at the helm, before continuing with a long monologue.
In the process of changing her, the young mother, a beautician in her spare time, had gone to get a diaper in another room.
Seconds enough for her daughter, then six days old, to fall off the changing table.
When he arrived at the emergency room, his behavior questioned the caregivers.
“You oppose care.
You are threatening to leave the university hospital when the scan shows that your child has parietal fractures, subcutaneous hematomas, intracranial bleeding
,” notes the president.
Ghislaine remains convinced that she has nothing to reproach herself for.
“On the third day, they offered me treatment for my daughter.
I didn't understand what it was.
I asked them questions.
I think this is the trigger that makes us go from “you had an accident with your daughter” to “you are an abusive mother”
.
When she was summoned by the child welfare services,
“I was informed that my daughter was going to be placed.
That I no longer have the right to go see her.
You can imagine my shock.
It was extremely violent
,” pleads the woman who assures that she has never had to deal with the police until then.
“I am not a delinquent.
I am not a criminal
,” she insists.
Arriving in France at the age of 11, the child's father is in Cameroon.
1 symbolic euro to pay in damages
“No, we do not consider you a delinquent or a criminal but you have committed an offense
,” underlines the prosecutor in his requisition, regretting an attack on authority and a violation of the prohibition.
“The decision of the prosecutor of provisional placement was legal and provided for by law
,” he asserts.
And if the defendant had succeeded in contacting the Cameroonian embassy as she had tried to do, it would not have changed anything anyway.
“I ask you to find her guilty of this perfectly characterized offense
,” continues the representative of the public prosecutor, while suggesting an exemption from sentence.
Given the situation, his interest would have been limited.
Especially since the defendant, judged capable of caring for her child, regained full custody a month ago.
Ghislaine N. was still ordered to pay a symbolic 1 euro in compensation for the damage.
The Department, which has responsibility for child protection, had become a civil party and was represented by Mr. Rodrigues.
The latter recalled that the soap opera had started in an extremely worrying manner.
The speech given by the defendant at the time, namely that
“the child had turned around on the changing table”,
had alerted the pediatrician.
Despite an attitude
that was “not the most appropriate”
at the hearing, the lawyer recognized the
“impulsive nature of an act”
of the young woman and did not fail to emphasize the good relationship with her daughter. Today.
An element confirmed by professionals who, according to reported comments, describe a
very “positive”
mother-daughter relationship , with a growing little girl who has no after-effects from her fall.