It has come to light that a nine-year-old child, who had been left behind by his mother to live with her lover, had been living alone in an unheated apartment in southwest France for the last two years.
The youngster was abandoned in a council flat in Nersac, a Charentean village outside of Angoulême, when his mother relocated three miles away to live with her new lover, according to French media.
The unidentified mother, 39, was sentenced last week to six months in prison for abandoning and endangering a minor. The boy’s father, who lived in another town, was not charged.
The youngster lived alone from 2020 to 2022. During that time, he washed himself in cold water, wrapped up in blankets and sleeping bags to be warm, and there were times when he had no hot water, heating, or power.
He was forced to steal tomatoes from a nearby balcony and scavenge for food from neighbours, who eventually went to the police, who got the boy taken into care.
According to The Times, the boy’s mother informed the neighbours that she was taking care of her son and asked them to keep out of her business when they voiced their worries before he was discovered.
Locals claim that the boy’s life of abuse and seclusion went unnoticed in part because he went to school, behaved well, and maintained decent grades.
Despite his hardship, Barbara Couturier, the town’s mayor, told France Bleu that the child had kept up with his studies and was an ‘excellent student’.
‘I think it was also a kind of protection that he put around himself to say, “Everything is fine,” she said.
She added that she did not think anyone would have been able to detect what was really going on, given how well the boy looked after himself.
A classmate of the youngster told TFI television: ‘He told his mates that he ate his meals alone and took the bus alone. He didn’t go out and stayed home all the time.’
According to reports, the boy’s mother claimed during the trial last week that she had lived with her son; however, police-obtained cellphone data allegedly refuted this claim, demonstrating that she had not spent much time in the flat.
I would have felt proud to have had this young lad as a son. You even feel proud of how he kept it together, poor lad. Hopefully, this guy is destined for greatness.
Because he will never have to rely on anybody except himself, this boy will succeed in life, and hopefully, now he will get the care that he deserves.
Amazingly, he did all of this for himself. However, it must have been so lonely for him. Coming home to an empty house, going to bed with no story or bedtime cuddles and waking up in the morning to silence. His mother, if you can call her a mother should be ashamed of herself.
What a very sad story indeed, and I can’t believe that his birth giver only got six months. Yes, I know I said birth giver, very woke indeed but in this instance it’s pretty appropriate. She gave birth to him and later went on to let him fend for himself. Did she think she was in the wild because animals do this, and then not all of them?
I believe that saying birth giver in this instance is perfectly acceptable. It’s disgusting what she did, and she can hardly be called a mother.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 