at the trial of the ordeal of Amandine, who died of starvation at 13, the testimony of her mother

Narrative
Thursday, on the fourth day of the hearing, Sandrine P., tried before the Montpellier Assize Court for having starved her daughter to the point of causing her death in 2020, was questioned. The prosecution’s indictment and the defense’s pleadings will take place on Friday.

This is the testimony that the crowd, which came in large numbers to the Montpellier courthouse this Thursday, January 23, has been waiting for since this trial began three days earlier. The testimony of Amandine’s mother, Sandrine P., accused of having starved her 13-year-old daughter to the point of causing her death. Since the start of the hearing before the Hérault Assize Court, the small, thin woman with long light brown hair has stubbornly kept her head down on her white sneakers. Not a glance when his two ex-companions described a person on the stand “hungry for money”, “violent”as well as the form of control she exercised over them. Not a glance either when her own children, Amandine’s four brothers and sisters, came to tell of the punishments and the beatings. Finally, not a glance when the president of the court showed happy birthday photos of little Amandine, blowing out the candles for her 5th birthday, then those, unbearable, of Amandine, aged 13, locked in a storage room. the family home in Montblanc (Hérault), prostrate, naked, emaciated.

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Throughout the judicial investigation, Sandrine P., 54, had denied the violence against Amandine between 2014 and 2020 and the barbaric acts which led to her death between March and August 2020. Tuesday, after two days of trial, she admitted what he was accused of. But there, on the stand this Thursday, when it came to explaining this mystery – how can a mother declared not a psychopath by experts be able to beat and starve her daughter to death? –, she blocked. “When you hit a child, and you hear your child begging, “Ow, it hurts, stop,” what do you feel? Who do you see? “, asks President Eric Emmanuelidis. “I see my daughter”, she answers. “So what?” What is this rage, this hatred? I can’t understand how this lasts twenty years on all your children. Have you questioned yourself since you were in detention? »

She takes time to respond, hands crossed in front of her: “I know I’m at fault, but why? I don’t know. Apart from being traumatized myself as a child, myself… surely. » She says she had a violent mother and was hungry as a child. And for the first time, she who had never shed a tear since the start of the trial when the whole room was crying, she cried. On his fate. “Why Amandine, more than the others? Didn’t you like him? “, continues the president of the court. “Yes, I loved him,” she replies in a small voice. “But how can you pull hair out of a 3-year-old and love him? Of your eight children, two died, two left and no longer want to see you and the other four filed civil suits. How do you qualify as a mother? » She answers: “Like a ashamed mother. »

There were reports she could have relied on social services. “It was inconceivable for me”, she said. On the contrary, she stopped her children from speaking. Out of love, out of fear of being placed or suffering reprisals from her, Amandine’s brothers and sisters kept silent. For them, and for Amandine, the child martyr, on whom the violence was even greater. Why her? “Because she was more like her father perhaps”says Sandrine P.

“His life was a ten-year punishment”

At the request of the president of the court, she recounts in short fragments of sentences how the first confinement from March 2020 pushed her over the edge. “There was no longer any gap between the two of us. It was complicated for both of them. » Under the pretext that Amandine “refused to do his homework”, she took him down to the ground floor storage room, which turned into a deadly prison. Wednesday, a brother and a sister said that Amandine went back to the start of confinement, to do housework. But naked, to make sure she didn’t steal any food. Sandrine P. recognizes it. “During this time, you knit, you eat, you welcome the children, you watch TV… Were you sleeping? »the president is indignant. Silence. “She was calling you, Amandine? She asked you for food? To drink? “, he insists. She doesn’t know.

Sandrine P. monitored her daughter, with the application on her phone or tablet, because she had her partner install surveillance cameras in 2019. Unbearable images, recovered by investigators, on which we can see the schoolgirl , who at the end of these long months only weighed 28 kilos and 1.55 meters tall, prostrate. She didn’t look up to watch them when the president broadcast them. “Madame, explain to us how we arrive at these images where Amandine is dying and only has skin on her bones? “, asks Eric Emmanuelidis. “I turned a blind eye to his condition,” she answers. “We cannot turn a blind eye to an act of torture! It is your companion who is blamed for not having acted. You have decided this situation. » She is silent. “What are you punishing her for? “, asks the president. “Of everything”, she replies, this time straight away. “You are punishing her for existing, what, sighs Eric Emmanuelidis, who has not hidden his anger since the start of the trial and less and less as the days go by. His life was a ten-year punishment. »

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Sandrine P. recounts the sinister day of Amandine’s death, August 6, 2020. She would have called her to come and eat, the young girl would have refused. Her mother allegedly forced her to eat a spoonful of compote, then, seeing her condition, sent her partner to buy a protein shake at the pharmacy.. And Amandine would be dead. “I loved him, I didn’t want him to die”, she sobbed. The president reminds her that she presented her daughter to investigators as being anorexic, a thief and a liar, that it took more than six months of investigation to find that Amandine was not anorexic, but starving..

After the death, one of Sandrine P.’s children found an air in her ” relieved “. She even went on a trip to Corsica. Investigators found this text message, sent to his companion: “Justice can do nothing against us. » Messages from her eldest daughter, Cassandra, telling him: “It sucks, it stinks” and Sandrine P. responding to him : “Bad period, it will pass. » “Do you feel guilty for the death of this child? “, asks the president of the court. ” Of course “, she replies, in her little voice, before asking « pardon » to his children. “I am monstrous, but I never wanted to kill. If I’m like that, maybe I’ve only seen violence around me. » Then Sandrine P. returned to her box, her face frozen, her eyes down on her sneakers, leaving behind the same questions and a mystery that remains as thick as ever.