This Monday, March 27, 2023 opened the appeal trial of the executioners of Ciara, who died in December 2018. The 13-month-old child succumbed to very violent blows despite follow-up by social services.
This Monday, March 27, in Auch, in the Gers, opened the appeal trial of Alicia P. and Malcom S. They are appearing for the second time in the case of the death in 2018 of Alicia’s daughter, Ciara, 13 months old at the time of the events. The little girl died on December 5, 2018 following acts of abuse that led to to hemorrhagic shock, then to cardiac arrest. In the first instance, the Lot Assize Court found Alicia P. guilty of intentional violence resulting in death without intention to give it. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Malcom S., who was 18 at the time of the incident, was acquitted.
For Ciara’s paternal family, this call is a new blow to overcome. Especially since the suffering suffered by the little girl before her death is particularly difficult to hear. As soon as he arrived at the hospital on the morning of December 5, health professionals understood that something serious had happened. The little girl is visibly in agony. She has numerous hematomas and multiple deep lesions, including on the genitals. During the autopsy, sexual abuse is revealed but also the cause of death: a broken liver which lets imagine the violence of the blows.
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Social services had been informed of the risks
Faced with this unimaginable violence, one question remains on everyone’s lips: how could this tragedy have happened? What was recorded during the previous trial was the mother’s guilt. Her presence was confirmed at her home that day and she showed no emotion when help arrived. Faced with psychologists, she did not even mention her daughter. Addicted to narcotics, Alicia’s disturbed profile had already been denounced to social services. In particular by the father of Ciara, separated from the mother of the family for a few months. He had already filed several handrails against her, and alerted to the major risk she represented for their daughter and her 4-year-old half-brother. Since December 2017, an administrative follow-up of the two children had been initiated, and an educational investigation measure had been ordered in May 2018.
These specific follow-ups did not protect the little girl. Me Édouard Martial, Ciara’s father’s lawyer, recounts in Le Parisien his client’s feeling of helplessness. “The dad who always sensed the presence of danger did not want, by its nature, to oppose the law. However, this day at the doctor’s, if he had obtained a medical certificate linked to the discovery of bruises on the child’s face and calf, he would have considered himself justified in not entrusting Ciara to his mother. Two days after this episode, the little girl died under the blows.