The family of little Maélie, who was killed by her mother, filed a $3 million lawsuit against the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ) of Montreal on Monday. The girl, who was 6 years old when she was stabbed 80 times, was reported to the DPJ four times in the 15 months preceding her death.
The child’s mother, Stéphanie Brossoit, suffered a psychosis after ingesting speed, GHB, an entire cake of cannabis and a tablet of a drug to treat depression, on July 23, 2020. Armed with two knives, she chased her daughter around their apartment. Little Maélie hid in a bathtub, but the mother broke down the bathroom door which was barred.
Stéphanie Brossoit pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison last March.
However, the mother’s consumption problems had been reported four times to the DPJ of Montreal between April 2019 and April 2020. The reports concerned Maélie “for a serious risk of neglect, for psychological mistreatment and for educational neglect as well only on a physical level”, according to the lawsuit initiated by the victim’s father, his half-sister and his paternal grandmother against the CIUSSS Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal which oversees the DPJ. The mother had custody of the child from Monday to Friday; the father, from Friday to Sunday.
Alcohol, cannabis, hashish…
A first report was made on April 11, 2019. During a meeting with DPJ workers, the mother admitted that she consumes alcohol and hashish, that she suffers from depression and that she attempted suicide two months earlier. However, the file was closed three months later because the facts reported were considered “unfounded” by the participants.
“At the time of writing the closure report [du dossier]Maélie’s young age and personal characteristics are wrongly not considered by the DPJ, even though the child is only five years old and is not registered in any childcare setting, making her all the more vulnerable. supports the 25-page lawsuit, filed at the Montreal courthouse on Monday.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE FAMILY
The victim and her mother, Stéphanie Brossoit
In the fall of 2019, Maélie’s half-sister, then 16 years old, no longer lived with her mother because of her substance abuse problems, but she sometimes visited her. On one of these weekends, the mother threw a party during which she drank a significant amount of alcohol, to the point where she could no longer care for her two daughters, the civil suit alleges. The older half-sister “has to take care of her younger sister alone for the entire weekend.”
A report is made in the days following this celebration. “The same day this second report was received, the DPJ decided again not to accept the report, without even carrying out additional checks on the ground,” we read in the lawsuit.
Following the third report, in March 2020, DPJ workers managed to meet Maélie’s mother after three unsuccessful attempts. She tells them that she smokes cannabis in the evening to help her fall asleep, but that she has not used hard drugs for almost a year. She agrees to undergo screening tests, but the DPJ takes no action in this direction. The tests therefore never take place.
“Such a screening test would also have been very revealing, considering the mother’s consumption habits much more significant and diversified than what she had affirmed to the stakeholders, which emerge from the circumstances surrounding Maélie’s death,” raises the lawsuit.
The fourth report was made on April 15, 2020 by police officers who went to Maélie’s home after a violent argument between her half-sister, who was visiting there, and their mother.
“The mother hits her eldest daughter, grabs her by the hair and tries to put her face on the still hot stove. The Plaintiff defends herself and calls the police. The child Maélie witnessed the altercation,” notes the prosecution.
The file was closed again by the stakeholders in May. “This latest decision to close the file was taken two months before Maélie’s tragic death at the hands of her mother,” indicates the court document.
The pursuit led by Me Valérie Assouline, the lawyer also involved in the civil suit of the family of the little girl from Granby against the DPJ, argues that commissions of inquiry and working groups have tried to correct the shortcomings of the DPJ for 40 years.
“The Defendant demonstrated serious carelessness and recklessness in the case of the child Maélie, but also over the years,” raises the lawsuit.