French justice condemns silence and indifference in child abuse case

The verdict is in on the case of the death of five year old Marc, who died in January 2006 after being beaten and tortured by his step father, David Da Costa.

On Thursday a court in the northern French town of Douai, convicted Da Costa for murder and found the boy's mother, Isabelle Gosselin, guilty of complicity. He received a life sentence, she will spend the next 30 years behind bars.

But they weren't the only ones in the dock in a case which brought to trial not only those who had played a direct role in Marc's death, but also those who had done nothing to prevent it from happening, even though they should and could have done.

There were also sentences handed down to seven other people on trial for failing to assist a person in danger.

They included Marc's grandparents, and his aunt and uncle - all of whom received a three year suspended sentence, and a childminder, who was also a close friend of the mother. She was given a one year suspended sentence.

And then as reported previously here, there were the two doctors, Christian Tirloy and Michel Vellemans. They were each given three year suspended sentences and fines of €60,000 and €75,000 respectively.

Both of them had seen Marc in the weeks preceding his death but had accepted his mother's explanations that he was self harming and had failed, as far as the court was concerned, to examine him properly. An autopsy showed that had they done so, they would have discovered the full extent of his injuries.

As a reminder of how much Marc had suffered, that autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral haemorrhage caused by multiple punches to the head. But it also showed that he had fractured ribs, bruising to his back and other scars including cigarette burns and scratches covering the whole of his body.

When confronted during the trial with a summary of Marc's injuries, one of doctors - Vellemans - who had seen the boy just eight days before he died, was asked how he had missed any physical signs of injury and why he had failed to carry out a proper examination.

After all that autopsy showed that at the time of the last appointment the boy must have had difficulty walking and had a fractured pelvis and ribs .

"I don't have any explanation," Vellemans told the court. "I should have done (examined him) - nothing else would have been possible".

It was a testimony that evidently made little sense to the court, and was as difficult to understand as their reaction, expressed through one of their defence lawyers, Vincent Potie, after the court's ruling to fine and sentence them.

"They're shocked and overcome," said their lawyer, Vincent Potie. "They find it appalling that what they thought they were doing in fulfilling their role as doctors, has now been defined as a crime."

Perhaps the most important outcome of the trial and the media coverage it has received over the past couple of weeks here, was not the conviction of Da Costa and Gosselin - those were pretty much a foregone conclusion from the start.

Instead it was to open up a discussion and bring to public attention the responsibility of those indirectly involved in the death of Marc - those who knew or should have known what was going on, but said nothing or were, for whatever reason, unable to say anything.

And to show that as far as the law is concerned, silence and indifference are unacceptable and such a case should be preventable, as the public prosecutor Luc Frémiot said on national radio afterwards.

"It's a reminder of what should be the norm - to repeat to people that they need to, and should do something when they see cases of child abuse," he said

"Everyone has to open their eyes. We're all concerned with this problem of violence and we all need to do something about it."

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