A 21-year-old mother and her 24-year-old companion were indicted and remanded in custody this Saturday, January 22, for “acts of torture and barbarism on their four-year-old child,” said the Bourges prosecutor’s office.
The parents admitted to having “locked up the child for sometimes several days, depriving him of water and food, then having tied him by the neck to his bed using a chain and padlock”, specified the public prosecutor Joël Garrigue in a press release. The little boy was also subjected “to repeated acts of violence and physical punishment since September 2021”, said the prosecutor.
The facts were discovered on Monday January 17 following a malaise of the little boy at school, which led to his hospitalization at the Bourges hospital center. It was then that the medical examiner at the hospital discovered “traumatic injuries”, “bruises on the limbs and in the back”, as well as a “wound on the scalp”.
Up to 30 years in prison
Very thin, the child was entrusted to the services of the Childhood Social Assistance (ASE), with his little sister aged 1 year, “who seems not to have been subjected to violence”, according to the prosecution. In this new news item, the investigation was entrusted to the gendarmerie of Saint-Amand-Montrond (Cher) which opened a judicial investigation for “deprivation of care or food”, “violence against a minor” and “torture or act of barbarism on a minor”.
The mother and her companion face a 30-year prison sentence.