Riom (Puy-de-Dôme), September 5, 2016. Cécile Bourgeon, Fiona's mother, arrives at the assize court where the man who raped her in 2012 is tried. - Thierry Zoccolan / AFP

  • In May 2013, little Fiona, 5, died of ill-treatment. Her mother, Cécile Bourgeon, and her stepfather, Berkane Makhlouf, claimed that she had disappeared in a park before admitting to having actually buried it.
  • Sentenced to twenty years of criminal imprisonment in 2018, Cécile Bourgeon has since been released following a decision by the Court of Cassation. It must be retried at the end of 2020.
  • Since her release from prison, she has remarried and given birth to a little girl who has been placed by a children's judge since her birth.

According to a source familiar with the matter, the atmosphere was "tense" in the children's judge's office on Monday. Cécile Bourgeon claimed custody of her granddaughter, born in February, during a closed-door hearing at the judicial court in Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales). According to our information, the magistrate put her decision under advisement on Monday, June 22, but left little hope for the young woman now aged 32 and who left the courthouse without saying a word.

Free pending a new trial at the assizes - the fourth - for the beatings leading to the death of his first little daughter, Fiona, in May 2013, Cécile Bourgeon remarried in December 2019 and has since given birth to 'a little girl. From birth, this baby was placed outside the family home by a court decision. "I estimated that, with regard to the social elements which were communicated to us, there was a danger for the child", explained to 20 Minutes , Jean-David Cavaillé, the public prosecutor of Perpignan, in March.

The father of the irregular child

According to our information, the decision to place the girl rests, for justice, on two arguments. The first is the proximity of the next trial of Cécile Bourgeon during which she faces a sentence of 30 years of criminal imprisonment. It is scheduled from December 1 to 18. The second is the administrative situation of the child's father. An Algerian national, he is now in an irregular situation in France, waiting for his situation to be resolved.

The little girl they had is the fourth child of Cécile Bourgeon. During his trial at first instance in 2016 in Riom, the Puy-de-Dôme assize court had withdrawn parental authority over his two other children, Fiona's little sister and a little boy whom she had had with Berkane Makhlouf, also accused of having raped little Fiona.

"I have the right to be pregnant if I want!" "

During the debates, Cécile Bourgeon had shocked public opinion by assuring, from her box, that she wanted, in the future, to have other children despite the fact that she was accused of having carried out fatal blows on Fiona. “I have citizenship rights. I have the right to be pregnant if I want! She had notably launched.

She also announced that if she was released, she would take her car around the clock to search "for the whereabouts of Fiona's body." A drug addict at the material time, the mother said that she no longer remembered the place where she buried her 5-year-old daughter. His body has never been found.

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Fiona case: "I have the right to be pregnant if I want to", protests the mother, Cécile Bourgeon

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"She was really in bad shape" ... Witnesses recount the last days of Fiona

  • Languedoc-Roussillon
  • Clermont-ferrand
  • Video
  • Perpignan
  • Justice
  • Assize Court
  • Trial
  • Child
  • Fiona
  • Berkane Makhlouf
  • Cecile Bud