9 year old French boy abandoned by mom lived alone in Nersac home with no electricity or hot water and was forced to steal for food as parent is sentenced to six months for child abandonment.
A nine-year-old boy whose mother abandoned him to take up living with a lover, leaving him to live alone in an unheated flat in southwestern France has said he never wants to see his mother again after prosecutors convicted the woman for child abandonment.
The child had been left to fend for himself in a council flat in Nersac, a village on the outskirts of Angoulême, in SouthWest France, after his mother moved in with her new partner three miles away, French media reported.
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.
‘Forced to steal tomatoes from a nearby balcony’
The boy was forced to fend for himself during his mother’s absence, admitting he stole tomatoes in order to survive, while still attending school and living in an unheated flat with no hot water.
The boy lived alone from 2020 to 2022 and during that time had periods without hot water, heating or electricity, washing himself in cold water and wrapping up in sleeping bags and blankets to stay warm.
The boy who survived off cold tinned food, was forced to steal tomatoes from a nearby balcony along with scavenging for food from neighbours, who eventually took notice and went to authorities in a bid to get the boy care.
Before he was found, neighbours expressed their concerns to the boy’s mother, who had told them that she was caring for her son and to stay out of her business, French media reported.
From time to time, the court heard how the mother would drop off food before leaving the boy to fend for himself.
How did a local community not notice?
His life of solitude and neglect went undetected, locals said, partly because the boy attended school, was clean and kept up good grades.
The town’s mayor Barbara Couturier told France Bleu that the boy had kept up with his homework and was a ‘good student‘, despite his ordeal.
‘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.’
The boy’s mother reportedly insisted at last week’s trial that she had lived with her son, but this is said to have been disproven by mobile data obtained by police which showed she had hardly been at the apartment where the boy lived alone.
‘I never want to see her again’
Police reported finding an empty fridge and no signs of adult clothing.
Neighbours have spoken of their guilt at not realising what was going on or acting sooner, telling local media that the anonymity of modern life played a part in allowing the neglect to continue for so long.
‘When there was a family and a village around the family, if the mother neglected the child, it didn’t matter too much, because the rest of the family and the whole village took care of the child. It’s not like that any more,’ a local resident said.
The court issued a sentence of 18 months in prison – six of which will be under electronic surveillance, while the remaining 12 were suspended – for the abandonment of a minor. The mother’s visiting rights were suspended, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer.
The boy has since been placed with a foster family and has indicated that he no longer wishes to have contact with his mother.
