Posted at 5:00 a.m.
A mother whose baby died of heat in a car cries out: she wants a device to signal the presence of a child in the back seat of a vehicle as soon as the engine is switched off. As summer and hot weather approach, Anaïs Perlot opens up for the first time about the death of her little Cassius.
“He was such a sweet boy, so wise, so nice, so cute,” recalls Anaïs Perlot, her voice broken by grief. June 22 will mark the fourth anniversary of the death of the 6-month-old toddler, who was left behind in a car.
That day, it was the dad who was responsible for bringing his daughter to her last day of kindergarten and then his son to daycare. He dropped off his eldest at school, then parked in a public parking lot near his place of work. It was 25℃ in Montreal. At the end of the afternoon, the father went to the daycare, but the staff informed him that his son was absent. It was there that he made the drama.
“It was the start of the holidays. I remember it like it was yesterday,” says Anaïs Perlot.
I was in line at the grocery store and got a call. As soon as I picked up, I immediately understood that something serious had happened. My ex-husband said to me, ‘You have to come quickly to daycare. I forgot Cassius in the car. All day.”
Anais Perlot
Anaïs Perlot jumped into a taxi and rushed to the CPE located in Griffintown. As she entered the principal’s office, she saw her lifeless, bluish baby on a sofa, surrounded by police and firefighters. “He was there, lying down. He had been given a little apple-green blanket. I took him in my arms. I kept him glued to me. He looked like he was sleeping. I was so angry with his dad, ”says the mother, emotional.
Photo Marco Campanozzi, THE PRESS
Anais Perlot
Following her investigation, Coroner M.e Julie A. Blondin concluded that the child had been “forgotten” and that the death was “accidental”. She notes that one child dies every year in Canada after being left inside a vehicle overheated by the sun, according to a study by the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
“This is a terrible drama for a parent. […] We must acquire societal means so that such a disaster does not happen again”, she underlines in her report.
Me Blondin affirms that tools already exist like cameras, mirrors and sensors under the seat of the child to prevent deaths.
If it is not possible to integrate a mechanism in new vehicles, “a simpler solution could be to equip the child seat with an alarm mechanism or to obtain a car seat provided with such a device. If a child is left in a vehicle, an alarm will go off and make sounds that can be heard outside the vehicle. Some of these devices will even transmit a message or call the driver’s phone,” she wrote in her report. She is not the first coroner in Quebec to make this recommendation.
Italy was the first country to make a safety alarm on the seat of all children under the age of 4 compulsory in its Highway Code. In her recommendations, the coroner urges Transport Canada to look into the matter. He did not respond to our interview request.
“It has to be done,” says Anaïs Perlot. “It can save the lives of babies. No one should go through what I went through,” she adds.
“With today’s cars, if a baby starts crying, no one will hear it. And with tinted windows, no one will see it. We have to find a way so that it does not happen again, ”she claims.
Towards a criminal prosecution?
Four years after the death of her son, Anaïs Perlot still does not understand how her ex-spouse could have forgotten their child in a car. “If someone always thinks about their phone, thinks about never forgetting it wherever they go, but doesn’t ask the question with their child, that’s a problem for me,” she said. .
Photo Marco Campanozzi, THE PRESS
Anais Perlot
Anaïs Perlot is considering filing a private criminal negligence complaint against her son’s father. The latter told the police that he was “extremely tired” and “stressed” on the day of the tragedy, and that his morning routine had just changed, since his toddler was starting to attend daycare.
Mme Perlot believes, however, that it was not an accident and that the police should have pushed their investigation further.
You have a man who leaves his child in a vehicle for several hours under the scorching sun. It is a serious fault that leads to the death of a small child. It can engage criminal liability.
Me Stephen Angers, lawyer for Anaïs Perlot
The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) had not brought charges against the father of the child in 2018, but a complaint remains a “possible option for citizens who are dissatisfied with a decision rendered by a prosecutor of the DPCP”, explains the lawyer. However, he specifies that private complaints are very rare and that a judge will have to authorize – or not – the legal proceedings.
Anaïs Perlot assures for her part that she is not waging this battle for revenge against her ex-spouse. “If a parent forgets their child in the car, it’s not an accident,” she says. I owe her, my son. »