An entire Secondary II class was interviewed following the suicide of a 13-year-old girl on the night of January 12-13 at her home. The parents were not notified until a second time, after hearing their children. Several of them are rebelling.
Tuesday morning, around 9:30 am, the vice-principal of the Collège de Basse-Wavre entered a second secondary class, accompanied by a police officer. Students are asked to follow them. They are taken to the police station for hearing. On the spot, the teenagers are greeted cordially by the police and supervised by psychologists, but the use of the mobile phone is prohibited. So it’s impossible for them to warn their parents.
This class was that of Maeva, a young girl who committed suicide 15 days ago at her home. The investigators wish to glean information about the adolescent’s behavior before her act; as well as any other information that could help to invalidate or confirm the trail of an act committed following harassment. After this interrogation of about two hours, the students are brought back to school … at about 12:20 pm.
“We spared our children”
When they arrive at school, students call their parents to explain the situation to them. Some of them put into perspective: “justice does its job”; others denounce an unacceptable practice. “We would have been asked if it was possible to interview our children as part of the investigation, we would obviously have accepted, says a student mother. Except that here, we are faced with a fait accompli. History is sensitive, and even if our children have been treated well, we have not spared them. “
Right after hearing the students, the school had sent a letter to the parents, trying to respond to their concern in these terms: “Following the apostille of the deputy public prosecutor requesting a duty of investigation in connection with the death of Maeva, we had to accept that your children follow the police inspectors at the Wavre police station this Tuesday 28 January in the morning. It indicates that the substitute’s will is that all the young people who attended the same class as Maeva be heard simultaneously.“
“The law does not require us to notify parents”
“Legally, we don’t need to have parental consent to audition minors, reacts the deputy public prosecutor of the king of Walloon Brabant, Marc Rézette. The interrogations are taken care of by investigators specialized in hearing minors. In this case, there was nothing unusual about our leader. In this type of investigation, I think it is necessary to work with children, minimizing the number of interferences. ” According to counsel for some parents, the children should have been interviewed in the presence of a lawyer.
The students were interviewed as part of a “contextualization” investigation as witnesses. They were notably questioned about the behavior of their classmate before their act, and about their habits on social networks. The goal is to establish the circumstances surrounding Maeva’s suicide. The case is still ongoing.
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