what we know about the case in which the government requested an administrative investigation

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Two children aged two and five “tied to high chairs, so they don’t move”in a “deplorable state of hygiene”. This is what the police discovered on August 30 when they entered a dwelling in Noyelles-sous-Lens (Pas-de-Calais), according to information given Monday, September 5 by the Béthune prosecution. These two children are part of a family of ten, aged from four months to 24 years. At the end of the police intervention, five of them, minors, were placed, and their parents, arrested and placed under judicial supervision, will be tried in early 2023.

Franceinfo summarizes what we know about this case revealed by the local press and in which the government has requested an administrative investigation.

The warning given by one of the elders

It was the call to social services from one of the eldest siblings that directed justice. The prosecution is seized, officers go to the family home and discover the children in a “deplorable state of hygiene”describes the public prosecutor of Béthune. “We are dealing with certain shortcomings, lack of hygiene, educational deficiencies”, underlined Thierry Dran, Monday, at the end of a round table on this file. However, he wanted to qualify: “We don’t have children covered in excrement as I have read everywhere”. The qualifier of “house of horror”seen in the press, is, for him, “completely exaggerated”.

This is not the opinion of Bryan, 21, who gave the alert and filed a complaint against his parents. “House of horror, it’s still a little word for me”he told BFMTV, facing the camera, on Wednesday.

“Justice does not respond, once again, present”he said, Tuesday evening, in tears, still on BFMTV, saying to himself “shocked” by the words of the prosecutor. While the latter assures that there is no “traces of beatings on the children”Bryan speaks on the contrary of “strikes with sticks, whips, rackets, brooms”. He claims that his little brothers or sisters were attached “23 hours a day” in their high chairs or strollers.

“Today, I have a 20 month old little girl: I see that this is not how you raise a child. When she is not good (…) we do not punish her by forcing him to stay three to four hours on his knees on the ground”testifies to Release Bryan, who has himself been convicted several times for acts of violence, notably in 2020, according to The voice of the North. His older brother, the eldest of the siblings, claims on a daily basis that he was abused by his parents because he was homosexual: “I was subjected to physical and moral harassment and homophobic insults because I am gay…”

“When they kicked out my older brother, my 5-year-old sister was born”recalls Bryan, who maintains that his parents had children “to have enough money to enjoy, buy the latest phone and not need to work”. “These are children who lived at home and whose cost they bear”contradicted in Release father’s lawyer. “The violence described by the sons is not of this intensity. Sometimes there was a slap that flew in relation to the harsh behavior of a child, but no abuse”still defends Bertrand Henne.

Children placed, parents soon judged

Following the intervention of the police services, the minor children of the siblings were placed “with a common association in establishments according to their age”, detailed the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel, who spoke at the end of the round table, alongside the prosecutor. The eldest is expected to join them and the baby has been placed with a foster family, “taking into account its specific needs”. “Children are safe”she pointed out.

Their parents, a 44-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman, were arrested on August 30. Placed under judicial supervision, they must be tried on January 24, 2023 for serious educational deficiencies and “violence on a minor aged 15 by ascendant” without ITT (total incapacity for work). According to the Béthune prosecutor’s office, they risk up to three years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.

“Failures” in the follow-up of children

The Secretary of State explains that the family was “known” social services since a first report in 2013. She “was followed by a number of actors for several years”, clarified Charlotte Caubel. But “we did not necessarily see the whole logic of the family”she pointed out. “There have been reports that have come to light year after year”in particular National Education, “which have not necessarily been cross-checked”. Charlotte Caubel pointed the finger at “failures” in the “coordination and exchange of information” between services.

Family “was sometimes very cooperative, sometimes not at all”insisted the Secretary of State. “When she had a visit from social services, she may have put her house in order out of goodwill, or, consciously, to hide her reality”she noted, speaking of “long-term abuse”.

“There were no surprise visitorssaid Bryan on BFM. [Nos parents] knew how to organize it all. They always managed to bamboozle our brains, to tell us that we were going to be in foster care, that over there, it was not pretty. “We replied that it was going well, but once they closed the door, it started again”he added.

An administrative investigation launched

The Secretary of State for Children announced the opening of an administrative inquiry in order to “Decrypt” why “the inspections of social affairs, justice and national education, alongside the department” have “gave rise to such a late reaction”. The investigations will last “as long as it takes”we tell franceinfo.

In addition to the administrative inquiry, the government has proposed setting up a “reinforced monitoring committee”, which involves all the players in the department. This experimentation is authorized by a law of February 2022. It should make it possible to improve the “coordination” and “exchange of information” between the various child protection actors in Pas-de-Calais, where the poverty rate exceeds 19%. A “very particular territory, with a certain number of families in difficult situations, of poverty”lamented Charlotte Caubel.


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