French pair accused of murdering son in washing machine

A couple have gone on trial in France accused of murdering their three-year-old son by putting him in the washing machine and switching it on.

The case has shocked France and raised questions about child protection policies, as the family was known to social services. Three reports of a child in danger and nine of worrying information had been filed before the alleged murder.

Christophe Champenois, 37, who is charged with murder, told the court he had no memory of putting his son, Bastien, into the top-loading washing machine on November 25th, 2011.

The court heard he placed the child in the machine and switched on the spin cycle. Champenois is said to have then put on a wash cycle that lasted between 30 minutes and an hour.

The boy died from the impact of the spin cycle, rather than from drowning, the trial in Melun was told. Bastien screamed for five to 10 minutes while his father looked on the internet and the boy's mother, Charlene Cotte, 29 – who is charged with aiding and abetting the murder – did a jigsaw puzzle with their five-year-old daughter, it is alleged.

“At the moment I don’t remember anything,” Champenois told the court, after giving various explanations of what happened during the investigation.

Just after Bastien’s death, he called the emergency services from the family’s small flat in Germigny-l’Eveque, east of Paris, and said he had a small problem as his son had fallen down the stairs.

Champenois said he had given him a bath and the toddler must have drowned because he had water coming out of his nostrils. But the couple’s daughter told the emergency services: “Daddy put Bastien in the machine.”

Cotte told investigators she was doing a puzzle with her daughter and Champenois was on the internet while their son screamed inside the spinning machine. She said that when Champenois removed Bastien from the washing machine and noticed he was no longer breathing, he said: “At least he won’t bother us any more.”

She accepted that she had seen him put the child in the washing machine and turn it on. In court, Cotte denied aiding or abetting and said she had tried to intervene, but was pushed back by her partner and fell on the floor. It is alleged that they wanted to punish the boy for his supposed bad behaviour at school.

The night before Bastien’s death, Champenois left a phone message for his social worker, which said of his son: “I’m going to throw him from the second floor, even if I get 15 years in prison.”

The social worker was away on sick leave and did not get the message until he returned to work.

Isabelle Steyer, a child protection lawyer, said: "This is not an isolated act ... it is not a fit of rage or madness, it is the final act of violence against a child who was always mistreated."

She said Bastien had “fallen through all the cracks”.

(Guardian Service)