Two days after her police custody was lifted, the teacher filmed hitting a child at the Frères-Voisins nursery school in the 15th arrondissement of Paris has broken her silence. “After days of ordeal, I feel relieved to have finally been able to give my version of events to investigators,” she told our colleagues on the 8pm news on France 2 on Tuesday, September 17.
The footage, filmed on September 4 by a mother who was in the classroom that day, shows the teacher violently hitting the 3-year-old girl, who was in the throes of a crying fit, to the point of making her fall. The little girl was sent to the corner, continuing to scream and cry, calling for her “mom” as the teacher watched. After a few moments, the teacher grabbed a spray bottle and sprayed an unidentified product on her head.
“The student in question admitted to having lied”
The child’s parents filed a complaint against the teacher the next day. Summoned to the 15th arrondissement police station as part of the preliminary investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office on September 10 for “violence against a minor under 15 without incapacity,” the teacher was taken into custody. She was released during the day. “I immediately regretted this unfortunate and wrongful act,” she explained to our colleagues at France 2, when questioned about the facts.
The teacher also returned to the second complaint filed against her, last Friday, by another parent of a student, who denounced a slap given to her child in 2012. “Concerning the accusations of repeat offense, we bring up a case from 2012 which did not give rise to a complaint, but to a report. We forget to say that there was an internal investigation and the student in question admitted to having lied,” she explained.
For her lawyer, there is no repeat offence: “If tomorrow, someone brings me proof (of the slap in 2012), then we will discuss it”, reacted Me Laurent Hazan, lawyer of the teacher, to France 2. According to him, the teacher had a difficult start to the school year, in particular because of overcrowded classes. In her personal life, the teacher, who is ill, would have recently experienced a bereavement, he claims.
According to our colleagues at France 2, the little girl has not returned to school. A two-month break was prescribed for her by a psychiatrist. The teacher, for her part, has been suspended and replaced.
