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June 10, 2020
Updated on June 11, 2020 to 4h17
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A father convicted of shaking his two babies
Isabelle Mathieu
The Sun
“I couldn’t believe I was doing this for the second time…”, “It”, it was to shake a baby, her baby, up to the seriously injured.
The Crown prosecutor, mr. Christian Gauthier was beautiful looking, he has not found, in the canadian case law, a case similar to that of Jean-Philippe*, a father of the Beauce sentenced to two times to have shaken her two children.
Jean-Philippe, who was now 28 years old, was first sentenced to 17 months in prison for having hurt his little girl of 6 months, between January and April 2015.
In a relationship with a new spouse, he has gone back on his little boy, aged only two weeks in June 2018 and then, a few weeks later, in July.
The arrival of the baby had, however, been well received, testified Julie*, the mother of the little victim. Jean-Philippe changes diapers, gives bottles, shows itself to be proud to walk around with her son. At the hospital, he had listened with attention to the guidelines of the nurse on the safe handling of a new-born.
Julie didn’t know the history of violence toward his child of Jean-Philippe; his partner had told him that he had been accused after a fight.
On June 17, 2018, the boy is crying. “I couldn’t understand what the baby was asking me,” explains Jean-Philippe to the judge, Rachel Gagnon of the Court of Québec. I saw black.”
He then compressed the baby’s chest with his hands, inflicting a fracture of the ribs.
On July 4, 2018, when a new episode of crying, Jean-Philippe shakes her baby, walking to the living room to the bedroom then dropped to the ground. It is the father who accompanied her child in the ambulance, Julie staying at home with her other children.
The child suffered a skull fracture and was hospitalized for 21 days. On his return home, he had to take medication to prevent seizures.
Today, the boy of two years old is still struggling to feed. However, he had used his muscle tone and his development seems normal for the moment.
Jean-Philippe has pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault last December.
The father did not blame the drugs he was taking during his training, he said. “It was I who made the choice to consume,” he admits. But I never thought it would make me anxious or out of me.”
He was on paternity leave at the time of the crimes, but was working ten hours a day as a mover, he said, to accumulate the money needed to purchase a car.
Jean-Philippe has made a therapy seven months after his first act of violence on his daughter. On his release from prison, he wants to continue his journey with the help of psychologists and therapists. “I want to find my problem, adjust it and get back in touch with my children,” says Jean-Philippe.
The Direction of the protection of the youth, he has already refused contact with his daughter, he has not seen since six years.
Suggestion six years in prison
The Crown and the defence suggested that common way for the court to impose on the father a six-year sentence in the penitentiary, of which he will a little more than three years to serve. The lawyer of Jean-Philippe would have liked the sentence to be postponed for several months so that his client remains in a prison facility provincial. This request was refused by the judge, Rachel Gagnon of the Québec Court, which will hear representations final party at the end of the month.
* Names fictitious to protect the identity of victims
