On September 13, the dad of little Maya (the first name has been changed), 7 months, comes like every evening to pick up his daughter from the crèche. When he returned to bathe him, he discovered several red marks on his baby’s chest. Worried, he takes pictures and calls his wife who is still at work. “I was not more distraught than that, tells us Loubna, mother of little Maya. I thought to myself that as she started to crawl, it was just little traces of friction”.
But the father, Imed, is not convinced. Already when he came to pick up his little one from the crèche, he had found the staff strange. “He was greeted by two employees who insisted abnormally on the fact that Maya had a toothache, that she had not eaten her snack well, continues the mother. My husband also remembered that our daughter was already ready, fully dressed when he arrived, which is not usually the case”.
But when the next day, Loubna changes her daughter when she wakes up, she discovers with horror that the red traces have become bruises. “There was also one on the bottom of the right cheek.” The mother rushes to the emergency room. The father immediately contacts the crèche. An explanation is in order. First, the director of the private establishment Microstars in Livry-Gargan (Seine-Saint-Denis) inquires. “She went to speak to the employees who had looked after our child that day. Then she contacted us again to tell us that nothing had happened. Worse, she offered us a place in another nursery,” continues Loubna. The parents insist. But for the crèche, nothing happened within its walls.
Complaint against X
On September 15, the father filed a complaint against X at the Livry-Gargan police station for “violence against a minor under 15”. A few days later, a report of the injuries to a doctor from the Forensic Medicine Unit followed, who awarded Maya two days of total incapacity for work (ITT). On the spot, the doctor who examines her and who observes the bruises asks the parents if Maya vomited or lost consciousness after her fall. “I was unable to tell him,” continues Loubna, sobs in her voice. And since the crèche denies everything, I may never know if my daughter is unwell. It’s horrible not to know”.
Contacted by telephone, the director of the crèche did not wish to speak. She just conceded to our questions “that she didn’t say nothing happened.” The coordinator at Microstars headquarters, whom we tried to contact on several occasions, did not respond to our calls.
Following the filing of a complaint, an investigation was opened with the Bobigny prosecutor’s office. But for Maya’s parents’ lawyer, Me Philippe-Henry Honegger, “this serious event was not taken seriously enough, neither by the nursery nor by the police,” he explains to us. “When we have a baby with traces like these, with two days of ITT, and we have people identified in the nursery, we can demand from our police that the investigation start the same day. Someone should go and question the nursery staff. Given the seriousness of the facts, even a week later, it is already too late”.
