It is a young girl whose first name has come to lengthen the long list of child martyrs.
A new victim of adult violence and cowardice, but whose death may have also saved her brother and sisters.
A drama in which the Assize Court of the Somme will plunge from this Monday, judging the mother and stepfather of this sibling of five children.
On November 24, 2018, Kléony, 4, died in Amiens (Somme) hospital after two days of agony, as a result of a head trauma and a subdural hematoma.
Injuries so serious that, at first, they might have seemed compatible with the version given by his mother: that of a road accident with a driver who fled.
A lie quickly revealed, the other children of the siblings, covered in bruises, confiding in the abuse suffered for months by their mother's new companion: beatings with batons, broom, fire extinguisher and belts, brushes, deprivation of sleep and food, obligation to eat spicy foods, mustard applied to irritated buttocks, torn tufts of hair ...
Locked in a storage room full of tear gas
Upon entering their life in January 2018, Cédric R., a cousin of their father, immediately imposed his rules: no more outings or visits, prohibition to speak to anyone. Under the pretext of "giving them a framework", the man bullies them, hits them for trifles and makes fun of them. One of the girls is thus forced to sleep in a storage room, where the children are often locked up, after Cédric R. spilled tear gas there.
One of the many “acts of torture or barbarism” as retained by the examining magistrate in this case which goes well beyond mistreatment.
In the radius of the various cruelties imposed on these young children, then aged between 4 and 14 years: "the game of the baballe" ... The ball in question being one of the children, that Cédric R. seizes by a foot or a hand, throws to the ground in the corridor and makes return to the cries of "come, the dog".
The same little boy he will hang in the air by the apartment window, threatening to let him go.
Two of the sisters, for their part, were repeatedly pushed onto a floor soaked in oil and dish soap so that they slipped and fell.
One of them also had her wrist deliberately broken by Cédric R., who, to be sure to reach his goal, jumped on it with both feet.
Pornographic videos with very young girls
On the day of his death, Kléony - who had made the mistake of throwing a toy away - was deprived of food, suffered kicks and punches, projections against the wall, cold showers.
Cedric R. even lock her in the washing machine - "a joke", according to him - threatening to cut off his arm if she resists.
Throughout the evening, Kléony will be boxed relentlessly.
Hilarious, Cédric R. will even make fun of her, letting one of his sisters: "Look at his face, it looks like a zinzin from space".
At the end of his strength, no longer holding on to his legs, Kleony finally collapsed.
It was then that Cédric R. ordered Julie V. to call for help and tell this fable of the car accident.
And it is on returning from the hospital that the eldest child, aged 14, then reveals to her mother that she has been raped for months ... and especially that evening, while Julie V. was present. at Kléony's bedside, between life and death.
Cedric R. would have started his actions in the summer, showing the teenager pornographic videos featuring very young girls.
He even, she said, promised to "get her pregnant before she comes of age ..." Facts that he firmly disputes.
"He is accused of having had relations with the one who is none other than his little cousin!"
»Specifies his lawyer Me Nathalie Moreau.
Likewise, he minimized the violence inflicted, recognizing slaps and beatings for educational purposes, but refuting the most serious acts.
“He is someone whose personal itinerary very early on included him in violence, drugs, the street.
He was educated in homes and remand centers, with a mother who was herself abusive… Her standards are different from what one can commonly expect ”, further clarifies his lawyer.
Life imprisonment incurred
The man, now 34 years old, already sentenced 18 times for a litany of crimes and numerous violence, has also discarded his partner. But the latter did not, according to the investigation, participate in the blows that killed Kléony. And if she committed some violence, she also feigned part of it, locking herself up with her children and asking them to cry out to make her companion believe that she was correcting them… A man she nevertheless covered, for fear , having medical certificates of convenience drawn up to justify the numerous absences of the children, and opposing visits by the police, alerted to the violence.
It is once again the efficiency of the entire system that this affair calls into question. As early as February 2018, the eldest child had indeed been heard and had filed a complaint at the police station, after a friend received her confidences and noticed bruises. But neither the mother nor the daughter, terrified, had followed up. In April, a report was also issued by the school, but again, Julie V. refused to open the door to social services ...
Cédric R., tried for "acts of torture and barbarism resulting in death" on Kléony, rape of the eldest, usual violence on all children, including three with acts of torture, faces life imprisonment. Julie V., 33, faces up to seven years in prison for usual violence, false denunciation and having refrained from intervening to save Kléony.