Could Lisa have been saved if witnesses had expressed their suspicions, or at least their doubts? This is a question that justice asks itself. The 3-year-old girl died on September 24 at the Rouen University Hospital, shortly after her admission. Well before the autopsy, the doctors made their diagnosis: abuse. His body was covered in bruises, some older than others. In police custody, the mother and stepfather of the little martyr admitted to having hit her on the evening of her death. In her confession, the child’s mother specified that the abuse had started a few months earlier, in the winter of 2022. How can we explain that no report was made? Did no one see anything, hear anything, of the ordeal endured by Lisa and her older brother, then aged 6?
The director of the girl’s school – who was also her teacher – and the head of her brother’s establishment were indicted in December for “failure to report abuse”, we learned on Monday. “The school principal admitted in police custody that she had told herself that it was necessary to make a report but that she did not do so, in particular because she did not have the time. The director disputes his responsibility,” said the public prosecutor of Evreux, Rémi Coutin. Both were suspended as a precautionary measure, added the rectorate.
“Why are they being targeted? »
“Why are they targeted and not the treating doctor, the neighbors, other members of the family? », asks Roseline Ducandes, deputy general secretary of the Union of School Directors. And to recall that in this case, the prosecutor himself mentioned the case of a family friend who tried to call 119 [le numéro d’urgence] but whose appeal was apparently not processed. In the teaching community, many have the feeling that the two accused serve as “fuses” in this highly sensitive matter. “We are suggesting a form of passivity on the part of this director, but she only had this student for two weeks [la rentrée venait d’avoir lieu] and she had already met the parents,” continues Roseline Ducandes. While she recognizes that the argument of lack of time may seem shocking at first, she emphasizes the overwork of their profession and the multitude of tasks that fall to them.
In France, there is a legal obligation to report a crime or misdemeanor. “Anyone who has knowledge of deprivation, mistreatment or sexual assault or abuse inflicted on a minor” and who does not inform the authorities faces five years of imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros if the child is less than 15 years old. “We do not expect a citizen to provide evidence, simply to relay their doubts,” specifies Laura Morin, national director of the Enfant bleu association. Confidences, abnormal cries or cries, concerns about behavior… “We realize that there are a lot of misconceptions regarding reporting. Some are afraid of reprisals or of breaking up a family. They imagine that the child will immediately be placed in the ASE, this is false,” she continues. Likewise, insists a judicial source, information which could subsequently prove false will not give rise to prosecution for “slanderous denunciation”.
An extremely rare procedure
Could the procedure launched in the Lisa affair have a counterproductive effect? “Some are already starting to tell us that they prefer to increase the number of reports, even for a little bruise, without really distinguishing,” continues Roseline Ducandes. A way of legally protecting yourself which could congest services. “The problem is that they already are,” insists this director of a school which has ten classes. I made worrying information in mid-November, the child was interviewed yesterday. I made another one for suspicion of incest at the end of September, and still nothing happened. We must not believe that if my colleague had made this report, the machine would have been set up immediately…”
The question had already sparked a lively debate at the time of the Tony affair, who died in 2016 at the hands of his father-in-law, in Reims. After years of legal battle, a neighbor was sentenced last October for “failure to report ill treatment”. A first. The man told investigators that he regularly heard disturbing noises from his neighbors: screams, tears, insults, shocks, etc. He then tried to act by warning the social landlord and putting up a poster in the elevator about the violence committed against children. Insufficient in the eyes of the prosecution. If the defendant obtained an exemption from sentence, many voices questioned the consequences of such a procedure, fearing that people in the same situation would no longer dare to speak at all, for fear of doing it wrong.
In this case, the Blue Child, initially a civil party, finally withdrew. “It is important that the law establishes a framework, but this case above all illustrates the lack of information on this subject,” believes Laura Morin. People really need to keep in mind that what happens in the private sphere may concern them. » This type of procedure, however, remains extremely rare. If the Ministry of Justice is not, for the moment, able to provide precise figures, the various sources, both in the educational and judicial circles, do not remember similar cases.