A defenceless 13-year old girl was starved, beaten and locked in a windowless room by her own mother during ‘ten years of punishment and violence’ which ended with her death, a French court has been told.
Amandine died in 2020, and now prosecutors in the southern city of Montpellier are calling for a life sentence to be handed to her depraved mother, Sandrine Pissarra.
The mother-of-eight admitted to her horrific crimes, reportedly telling the court ‘I am a monstrous mother’.
When asked why she treated her child with such brutality for so many years, Pissarra coldly replied: ‘Because she looked like her father.’
The 54-year-old is charged with torture and barbarity against her daughter and should serve a minimum of 20 years behind bars, prosecutor Jean-Marie Beney told the court, with a verdict expected to be returned today.
Amandine died of hunger after suffering from extreme weight and muscle loss as well as septicaemia, according to the medical report after her death.
The skeletal teenager, her face swollen and covered in infected wounds, died on August 6, 2020. She weighed just 28 kg (62 pounds) while being 1.55 metres (5.1 ft) tall.
She had also lost several teeth and had her hair pulled out. Amandine had been locked for weeks in a windowless storage room and deprived of food.
Amandine died in 2020, and now prosecutors in the southern city of Montpellier are calling for a life sentence to be handed to her depraved mother
Since she was very young, Amandine had been the victim of blows, including with brooms, punches, kicks, hair pulling, repeated shouting, insults and jostling, Beney said.
For Pissarra, ‘domestic tyrant, dictator of the home, executioner of Amandine, there can only be one sentence – a life term with a minimum of 20 years served in prison,’ said the prosecutor.
Questioned the day after her daughter’s death in the village of Montblanc, south west of Montpellier, Pissarra said Amandine suffered from eating disorders – a claim not confirmed by anyone else.
She said that on the day of her death, Amandine had agreed to swallow only a piece of sugar, a little compote and a high-protein drink before she started to vomit and then stopped breathing.
The mother, who had been running a nail salon, has eight children from three relationships. She has been in custody since May 2021.
The prosecutor also called for an 18-year prison sentence for Pissarra’s ex-partner, Jean-Michel Cros, terming him a ‘cowardly collaborator of the system’ who ‘deprived Amandine of care until her death’.
Since she was very young, Amandine had been the victim of blows dealt by her mother
The 49-year-old, who faces 30 years in prison for having ‘deprived his stepdaughter of care or food’, also admitted to the charges against him, and reportedly told the court ‘I feel enormous guilt about this’.
The investigating magistrate in charge of the case said in a report there was ‘no doubt’ Amandine endured violence from her mother, ‘the sole purpose of which was to drag her into shameful and humiliating agony’.
Amandine had from a young age been targeted by her mother, who deprived her of food, inflicted endless ‘writing punishments’ on her and locked her in a storage room under the surveillance of cameras, it said.
According to the psychiatric assessment, Pissarra, described by those around her as angry and violent, was seeking to ‘transfer her hatred’ of Amandine’s father on to her daughter’s body.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
