A childminder was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday by the Pyrénées-Atlantiques criminal court in Pau for shaking a 5-month-old infant in 2014.
This 40-year-old woman was found guilty by the professional magistrates of the criminal court of intentional violence resulting in permanent disability on a baby for whom she was responsible, at her home in Lescar, in the suburbs of Pau.
According to the local press, the infant had been entrusted to him for less than a month when he was urgently hospitalized on September 26, 2014. Experts had concluded that he had “shaken baby syndrome”.
The little girl, now 8 years old, remained severely handicapped.
The Advocate General had requested ten years of imprisonment against the professional, who has always denied having exercised a shaking or violent gestures.
The criminal court also banned her, permanently, from exercising the activity of childminder as well as a professional or voluntary activity involving regular contact with minors.
The 40-year-old has the option of appealing the verdict within ten days.
Several hundred child victims each year
Shaken Baby Syndrome is the most severe form of child abuse and neglect and the most common cause of traumatic death among infants in high-income countries.
According to the national awareness campaign launched by the government at the beginning of the year, in France, several hundred children are victims each year.
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In one out of ten cases, the infant dies.
In three-quarters of cases, he will suffer sequelae throughout his life (paraplegia, blindness, epilepsy, cognitive impairment, psychomotor retardation, autism, etc.).