Some will say “poor thing”. Parents living in the North were recently sentenced following their daughter’s lice infestation. According to The voice of the North, the criminal court considered that “not everything was done to treat” the six-year-old child. Separated, the father and mother who shared custody received a two-month suspended prison sentence.
To understand this story, we have to go back to July 2022. At that time, the parents were already separated and living in two different cities in the North. One day, the father picked up his daughter with “a lot of lice” according to his words. Two weeks later, when she returned to her mother, she had even more. The woman takes him to the doctor who diagnoses a scabies infestation and prescribes treatment.
Doctors alert authorities
But the product doesn’t work and the little girl continues to scratch her head. Worse still, his health is worsening. His mother therefore decided to take him to the hospital where the doctors noted that the child had a fever, lesions all over his body and a secondary infection due to small parasites.
In total, the girl had to be hospitalized for three weeks. The caregivers speak of “carelessness”, that is to say a lack of care, and alert the authorities. During their trial, the parents both blamed each other.
The mother defends herself
For his part, the father said that he had taken his daughter to the emergency room in Denain, where he lives, before being sent back to Valenciennes where he could not go due to lack of resources. He assured that he tried to treat her, by washing her hair daily with a suitable product and combing it afterwards. He still admitted that he could have contacted emergency services.
The mother also wanted to defend herself. “It’s true that I waited five days to go to the emergency room, but I consulted my doctor,” she said, according to the court account of The voice of the North. But that did not convince the prosecutor. “A superinfection doesn’t develop overnight,” she retorted. The convicted parents decided to appeal.
