France condemned by the ECHR after the death of little Marina

• Marina Sabatier, 8, died in 2009 after being abused for more than six years.
• His parents were sentenced in 2012 to 30 years' imprisonment, including a 20-year security period by the Sarthe Assize Court.
• The case had deeply moved public opinion because the ill-treatment had been the subject of several reports before Marina died.

There were of course the repeated blows. But also the ice baths. And the whole nights spent alone in a cellar. The abuse that lasted six years before, finally, the investigators found the body of the little Marina, 8 years old, cast in concrete in a plastic container abandoned in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant near Le Mans ( Sarthe).

Almost eleven years after these facts, France was condemned this Thursday by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for not having been able to protect the little girl from the actions of her parents before she died. In a decision rendered on Thursday, the Court installed in Strasbourg considers that France has violated Article 3 of the Human Rights Convention which prohibits "torture and degrading treatment" of which the girl was the victim.

"The Court concludes that the system failed to protect [Marina] from the serious abuses she suffered from her parents and which, moreover, led to her death," said the decision.

The box in which Marina's parents buried her in concrete. - JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / AFP

The report of the principal of the school in question

As 20 Minutes had revealed in 2017, the case had been brought before European justice by the associations Enfance et Partage and Innocence en Danger. The two structures criticize French justice for not having been able to take into account the numerous reports of ill-treatment of Marina made before she succumbed to the blows.

In its decision, the Court returned in particular to the report made by the director of the child's school in June 2008. "The Court noted that '' the report on suspicion of ill-treatment '' triggered the positive obligation of the 'State to conduct investigations. She concluded that the measures taken by the authorities between the time of the report and the death of the child were not sufficient to protect [Marina] from the serious abuse of her parents. "

A medical certificate reported 16 injuries on the child's body

Returning in detail to the whole procedure, the European Court of Human Rights recognizes that it is "difficult for the authorities to find a balance between the need not to miss a danger and the concern to respect family life "but believes that France could have taken additional measures to avoid the death of the 8-year-old girl who had moved France.

The European magistrates thus estimate that it would have been “useful” to hear the teachers who noted the first wounds on the body of Marina. A medical certificate mentioning 16 lesions had indeed been drawn up at the material time. Furthermore, the Court noted that the successive moves of Marina's parents should have been the subject of in-depth investigations. 

During their trial, Marina's parents confessed to having moved five times in two years in order to escape social services, and to have encouraged their 8-year-old child to lie to the gendarmes about the origin of his injuries. They were ultimately sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment, including a 20-year security period, for "acts of torture and barbarity".

Justice

ECHR demands accountability from France for the death of little Marina Sabatier

• Child
• Trial
• Cedh
• Justice
• Abuse