Boulogne-sur-Mer (AFP)

They are believed to have attempted to murder a man and then abandoned their girl brain dead in hospital after a road accident Monday in Samer (Pas-de-Calais): a couple of thirties has was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Outreau and placed in custody.

On Monday, the 34-year-old mother and her 35-year-old companion are first suspected of stabbing Boulogne-sur-Mer, the woman's ex-spouse and lover. AFP the parquet Boulogne-sur-Mer. According to the complainant's version, slightly wounded in the forehead, it is the man who wanted to "take revenge" by "suppressing" him.

An hour after this alleged assault, the parents and their three children had a car accident: the car, driven by the non-driving license driver, hit the underpass wall of a railway bridge around 8:00 pm Samer, about twenty kilometers from Boulogne-sur-Mer.

"Did the couple come back from the aggression at that time? It remains to be determined," asks the prosecution.

Their 18-month-old girl was then heliported in a very serious condition at Lille University Hospital, where she was brain dead Wednesday afternoon.

The parents and their two other children, aged 3 and 4, were admitted to the Boulogne hospital. The children "are still in a medical environment, one because he is in shock and the other because he suffered brain damage that could lead to sequelae," said the prosecutor's office on Wednesday. evening.

- "alcohol positive" -

But the couple hurriedly left the property on the night of Monday to Tuesday.

Actively sought after, they were arrested Wednesday, without rebelling, on public roads in Outreau "drunk" and were placed in custody at 2 pm on "the criminal facts of attempted murder".

According to a testimony reported by the prosecution, when they left the hospital, "their goal was to go to Lille to inquire about the state of health of their daughter, but apparently they remained in the Boulogne region" .

The results of the blood tests carried out after the accident are not yet known, but the prosecutor's office is "almost certain" that they will prove positive to alcohol.

The mother has already been sentenced in 2011 by the Assize Court of Miners of Saint-Omer to eight years in prison for "robbery": "with an accomplice, minor at the time of the facts, they are accused of having under the threat of a razor, stole phones or money from high school students, "said the prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer. She was also sentenced in 2007 for "death threats" and "carrying weapons".

For his part, the father was notably convicted of domestic violence in 2016 and 2017.

Both are "unprofessional" and "consumers of narcotics and alcohol".

In the regional newspaper La Voix du Nord, the mother of the driver had urged the couple, originally from Carly, near Boulogne, to surrender. "She made bullshit in her life, but that ... She was hatching her children, she was always with them, I do not understand," she said daily.

© 2019 AFP