20 years required for torturing a 2-year-old child

The prosecution demanded twenty years of criminal imprisonment on Thursday against a man tried for having beaten and tortured almost to death a two-year-old child for two weeks, the main defendant among six people who have been appearing for ten days in Douai, in The north of france.

• Read also: 2-year-old baby used as ‘punching ball’, six people charged

The Advocate General, Cécile Villoutreix, also requested a two-thirds security period and a 10-year socio-judicial follow-up against this man, accused of “acts of torture and barbarism”, and who admitted the facts.

The accused, to whom the little boy had been entrusted by his mother in Auberchicourt (North), in December 2018, “prompted” the dynamics of “unheard of violence, exercised free of charge” for 15 days on the child, pointed out the general counsel.

During alcoholic evenings involving to varying degrees the six accused, the child had notably been tied up with scotch tape, used “like a football”, trampled, pushed down the stairs or even deprived of sleep.

The sentence required is below the legal maximum incurred, 30 years.

“Dried up” emotionally, the accused lived a “terrible” childhood and has an IQ “at the limit of mild mental deficiency”, according to the personality investigator.

Against her companion, Ms. Villoutreix requested 15 years of criminal imprisonment with a two-thirds security period, and requested the total withdrawal of the couple’s parental authority over her five daughters.

For the mother of the little boy, accused in particular of not having denounced the violence he suffered and of not having had him treated immediately after recovering him, the magistrate asked for six years’ imprisonment, with a warrant of deposit.

She also requested the total withdrawal of her parental authority over her two sons.

For two men, who participated in the most violent scenes, she asked for 12 and 10 years of imprisonment respectively.

For the sixth defendant, she requested five years’ imprisonment for failure to assist a person in danger.

Hospitalized on December 18, the little boy had been placed in an artificial coma, suffering from severe head trauma, numerous hematomas and fractures of the pelvis and tibia.

Now seven years old, he suffers from significant neurological and psychological sequelae, according to his lawyer, Me Alain Reisenthel. “It took him a year to learn what a smile was, two years to relearn how to walk.”

---

Source

---