Thursday September 28, a collective of Angevin citizens, touched by the story of Caroline Gendron, a mother who has been fighting for five years to regain custody of her daughter, entrusted to the father, while a complaint for incest is being filed. instruction, will symbolically submit a petition to the Angers court. Objective: to advance Justice.
The citizen initiative is quite unprecedented in a case of incest.
Next Thursday, September 28, at 3:30 p.m., rue Waldeck Rousseau, Angevins will meet in front of the Angers courthouse. They plan to submit a petition launched this summer by a close friend of Caroline, and signed by 472 people, in support of her fight as a mother.
“Among the signatories, there are parents, grandparents, touched by Caroline’s fight over all these years. Many people have contacted her to give her their support. People from Angevin, but also people from Martinique , from Ecuador, from Paris. I did not expect this citizen mobilization and this media coverage”, explains Tiphaine, at the origin of the petition.
We must be heard to better protect our children
Tiphaine
Creator of the petition in support of Caroline Gendron
The petition will also be sent to the Minister of Justice and to the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel.
Caroline Gendron has been fighting for five years to get her nine-year-old daughter back. His custody was granted to his father in a judgment rendered by the JAF of Angers (family affairs judge) on July 19, 2022.
Today, Caroline Gendron can only see her child two weekends per month. His former partner has custody of him in Rennes, where he moved.
However, a complaint for incest is currently being investigated.
When the girl was four years old, she confided in her mother. A team from France 3 Pays de la Loire collected the testimony of this mother in June 2023 on this subject.
Her dad would touch her on the side in his bed or in hers. This is what she told me. Those were my daughter’s first words. I was stunned. I assure you, the world is truly falling apart.
Caroline Gendron hopes to be able to regain custody of her daughter in Angers. • © France 3 Pays de la Loire – Laurence Couvrand
Caroline files a complaint twice. Classified each time without further action. However, doctors and psychologists consider her daughter’s testimony credible. His treating doctor noticed lesions on his genital organ.
Caroline then decides to no longer entrust her to her ex-partner, who has joint custody of her.
The court sentenced her to two months in prison.
A few months later, she lost custody of her daughter. “I am incomprehensible about this justice, which is not justice for me. Because each time, we are always explaining that there is parental alienation or that I am doing too much. I’m doing too much for my daughter.”
The mother is then suspected of parental alienation, that is to say of manipulating her child to turn him against his other parent. A portrait which in no way corresponds to Caroline’s profile, believes her lawyer at the time, Maître Noura Amara-Lebret.
“This is not a mother who overnight files a complaint to break a bond between a father and a child. It is the profile of a woman who will be alerted by a certain number of stakeholders and in particular the medical world and who at first will not believe it. The expertise which was carried out demonstrated that the lady had a healthy psychological profile.”
Seized of the case, an investigating judge would have placed the father under the status of assisted witness. An intermediate status between that of a simple witness and that of indictment.
When contacted during the writing of this article, Maître Corinne Vallée, lawyer for the father of the little girl, did not wish to speak at the time of writing to confirm or deny this information.
Caroline Gendron appealed the judgment rendered by the JAF which entrusted custody of her daughter to the father. The hearing before the Angers Court of Appeal will be held on December 7. Caroline Gendron expects a lot from this audience.
“I have to keep hope, I have to believe in it for my daughter. I promised him, I will fight until the end. But it’s very difficult. My baby is extremely strong, even if she is not doing well. All his bearings were taken away from him, his mother, his friends, his school. It’s terrible.”
Caroline contacted Ciivise, the independent commission on incest and sexual violence against children.
The new lawyer in charge of Caroline Gendron’s case, Maître Anne-Claire Lejeune, is also hopeful. Especially since new elements could change the case.
A report, “overwhelming” for the father, according to the lawyer, was carried out last spring by the judicial psychologist who intervened within the framework of the educational assistance measure ordered by the Children’s Judge of Angers and entrusted to INALTA DISMO, the child protection service.
“I follow a lot of similar cases. But for social service professionals to intervene to make such reports to the courts is very rare.specifies Maître Anne-Claire Lejeune, Caroline Gendron’s lawyer.
Another element is size. “In this case, as incredible as it may seem, the child has until now never been heard by any court. However, for the first time, the little one asked to be heard by the court at the Angers court The hearing is scheduled for October 27. Her dad has chosen a lawyer for her. But I ask that she be assisted by a lawyer from the minors’ branch designated by the Angers President, for greater impartiality, and neutrality.”
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