North: sentence reduced on appeal for a mother who had left her baby to die

Europe 1 with AFP 5:27 p.m., March 25, 2022

A 37-year-old woman who had left her 19-month-old daughter, Melinda, scalded to death by her companion in 2016 in a northern town, had her sentence reduced on appeal to 15 years in prison on Friday.

The public prosecutor of the Assize Court of Saint-Omer, in Pas-de-Calais, had requested 18 years of imprisonment, the sentence imposed at first instance in October 2020.

The jurors finally sentenced Ana-Maria Barbosa de Sousa to 15 years in prison, for lack of care and failure to prevent a crime.

"I dare to believe that the evolution of the perception that she has of her responsibility has been taken into account", declared her lawyer, Me Fatima En-Nih, considering that the sentence "allows her to glimpse a tomorrow" .

"She continued to look for excuses, I do not have the impression that there was a real awareness", regretted Me Hugo Van Cauwenberge, lawyer for the civil parties, including the two eldest children of Mrs. Barbosa , placed with his mother.

“I did not know how to protect my children”

Melinda had died two years after her big sister Joulia, killed at 21 months by a relative to whom her mother had entrusted her.

Ana-Maria Barbosa had been given a three-month suspended prison sentence for mistreating this other child.

A battered child herself, the 30-year-old has never worked, chaining nine pregnancies and giving birth to four children.

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"I couldn't take it anymore," she said on Tuesday at the start of the trial, to explain her passivity.

"I saw things, but I only thought of myself", "I did not know how to protect my children", she admitted.

Despite significant social support from this dysfunctional family, little Mélinda died on May 18, 2016 around 2:30 p.m., in Neuf-Mesnil after being sprayed the night before with hot water by her stepfather.

The Samu had only been alerted the following day at noon

The child had been smeared with moisturizer and put to bed, without anyone calling for help despite her screaming and vomiting.

The Samu had not been alerted until noon the next day.

Mélinda was born when her parents, separated, were forbidden to see each other because of the ongoing legal proceedings on the death of her sister.

His mother had then met Jason Odin, ten years his junior.

The couple lived with a man that Jason Odin called his "uncle".

Jason Odin was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for "barbaric acts", and his host to four years in prison for not having assisted the child.

They didn't call