A woman gave birth on a TGV in 2021 then killed the newborn, found in a trash can at an Ouigo at Saint-Charles station in Marseille. She was sentenced this Wednesday at the Pas-de-Calais court to 18 years in prison.
It was an SNCF maintenance worker who found the dead infant, abandoned in a bloody toilet trash can in a TGV which had just completed a journey from Lille to Marseille. According to autopsy and expert reports, this male child was born at full term, “alive and viable“, according to his mother’s charging order.
His death was due to both “mechanical asphyxia“, head trauma, hypothermia and lack of care after birth, according to these reports.
A secret birth
Now aged 43, the mother, residing in Pas-de-Calais and already known to the courts for minor crimes, was quickly identified thanks in particular to genetic analyzes of the baby, then arrested.
Neither mental illness, nor substance use disorder, nor a level of intelligence below average were detected during the investigation in this woman, who admitted to having suffocated the child just after his birth , in a state of extreme panic.
She had hidden her pregnancy, and even her childbirth, from her partner, the baby’s father, who had traveled with her on the TGV. She explained to investigators that she was afraid that he would leave her if she had a child with him.
If the verdict is below the 25 years of imprisonment required by the public prosecutor, the mother’s lawyer, Me Benoît Cousin, estimated that the sentence was “extremely disappointing” et “unnecessarily harsh“, car sa client “is not dangerous“and could”reintegrate“in society.
“She is a lady who built herself on an extremely damaged life story.“and several expert reports showed that she had had a”impaired discernment” at the time of the events, Me Cousin told AFP. He specified that his client will appeal.
