Criminal inquiry launched after six-year-old boy ‘kills newborn baby’ in France

[SerendipityJane]

Terrible story, raises some upsetting questions.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/crime/france-baby-killed-boy-hospital-lille-b2790118.html

I can’t imagine social services will decide to keep these children with their parents. Highly neglectful and it’s quite obvious the 6 year old is troubled. Any other 6 year old would be worried about the baby, seek reassurance from a grown up, or be frightened and leave. He would’ve known he was hurting the baby. Maybe not intent to kill, but he knew he’d be causing harm.

I imagine baby is in foster care, until they conclude whether with parenting courses the baby can return home. I imagine the 6 year old is elsewhere and will never return home in childhood as needs a therapeutic environment with lots of care.

Absolutely horrendous case and both the parents and hospital have some serious questions to answer.

The whole situation sounds like an accident waiting to happen if both patients and staff had complained about him running around unsupervised. The potential for harm for him and others was so high with the possibility of him escaping, being taken or having or causing an accident. The hospital had identified his lack of supervision as unsafe but it seems that they did little to actively manage the risk. Very sadly although an accident was entirely foreseeable, the accident that did happen was the worst outcome there could have been.

For a child of his age his behaviour is incredibly unusual. Most 6 year old children would know not to pick up a baby, let alone a poorly one they didn’t know in a hospital. Again, for most children of that age being told ‘no’ by an adult would have corrected them and prevented them from trying any more. Possibly he has some SN that prevent him from fully understanding risk. Possibly he has just been so poorly parented he has no idea of safe boundaries. Either way his parents have utterly failed to keep him and others safe by allowing him to run amok around the hospital.

Absolutely heartbreaking for the baby and her family.

Why wasn't there an adult with the baby? When my DD was in a neonatal unit there was a nurse in the room at all times.

This is so incredibly sad, for everyone involved but my anger is directed mostly at the person that dropped that boy off at the hospital to run wild, and the hospital for not having proper security and letting a newborn in the neonatal unit be left alone.

Utterly tragic and obviously shouldn't have happened but care needs to taken in trying to shoehorn or think the way the UK does things applies here.

Certainly at our local French hospitals the maternity unit is secure (it's in a seperate unit to the main wards), you have to be "buzzed in"..

Probably a better source than UK news is something like the piece in the link below..I think it's readable without subscription but obviously it's French language.

https://www.ladepeche.fr/2025/07/17/mort-dun-bebe-premature-a-lhopital-un-enfant-a-lorigine-du-drame-surveillance-manque-dempathie-de-lhopital-5-questions-sur-la-tragedie-12830545.php

Thanks for that.

This doesn't sound good either for the hospital: 'the day before the tragedy, the infant was found without a diaper or electrodes, wet, and suffering from hypothermia.'
RIP Zayneb

The parents should be prosecuted for manslaughter. The child sounds deranged.

Jesus. Are they saying that was the boy as well??

Surely this should have prompted better security/care on the unit?????
A near miss should have meant an immediate clamp down on access to the unit whilst an investigation took place
That poor baby and her family have been let down so terribly by the hospital.
I suspect the 6 year old has been terribly let down by his parents.

The criminal investigation might well be for corporate manslaughter or the French equivalent

The dad dropped the kid at the hospital every day from 7am until 8pm

« After the tragedy, the mother of the boy took him with her in her bedroom and closed the door »

The parents have a lot to answer for.

No, I don't think that is fair. The hospital must bear some responsibility.
When I had my ds, access to the NHS neonatal unit had security and only parents were allowed in.

The maternity unit had a ward manager who dealt with visitors, security and logistics. Unattended children were not allowed.

It doesn't give any context.. but considering they said said he said Zayneb was his doll, it doesn't sound like a single random visit.. Absolutely horrific.
I agree with pp that the hospital should have taken charge on this. The idea that the child was dropped off each day is absolutely crazy. Parents responsible too of course but less so the mother. Who knows what that family's situation is but it sounds v off.

Why would a six-year-old even be allowed into a neonatal unit?

Ultimately, the hospital should have put a stop to the situation a lot sooner. The boy should have been removed by security and an adult other than the mum called to remove him from hospital. If no one was willing to come, the police or social services should have been called

Agree with all of this - and we have called social services in the past when this has happened (adult services). This is essentially an unaccompanied child visitor. Obviously the mother wasn’t happy with us, but I have never seen a case where this didn’t represent either underlying DV or child neglect.

Awful. It probably wouldn't have happened two weeks earlier because the 6 year old would have been in school.

Surely the hospital is to blame here. I can't believe they let members of the public of any age just walk into the NICU unsupervised.

I think the child and parent need a severe thrashing

This. It's on the parents. Staff are busy doing their jobs. Always makes me chuckle when parents angle to take their children to hospital for a scan etc and they think staff will look after their children 🙄. They won't. Not their problem or job, parents need to sort their own childcare

Utterly ridiculous. Social servies don't take a child into temporary foster care because he's running down hallways.

Horrible horrible story. I'm assuming he was too young to be at school in France. So awful for both sets of parents.

Yes, but there are always some parents who won't or can't take responsibility for their children. In France women who give birth typically spend several nights in hospital even when everything is straightforward, which must make childcare for older children an issue in some cases. That isn't a good reason for bringing your older child to the hospital and letting them roam free every day (and someone who is not the child's mother must have been bringing him in at 7am every day and leaving him unattended).

But if you are working in a hospital, particularly one where vulnerable patients in places like the NICU are apparently left unattended, and you have received multiple complaints about a primary school age child roaming around causing havoc, you need to do something about it.

No, school is compulsory from age 3 in France, but it is the summer holidays.

Absolutely awful.

My son has spent a lot of time in hospital and it is crazy how many parents are happy to let their well children run around. One child in particular visiting on the ward my son was on was always pulling the curtains open, getting into my sons things etc and the poor nurses were always running around after him.

They take children into emergency temporary care where no parent is available.

In my old job (non statutory educational setting) we had to get this arranged twice.

Admittedly there is considerable pressure for those stuck with the child to keep them.

This would not be allowed in our hospitals. The parents of the boy knew they were having a 2nd baby. Surely they had time to make arrangements for childcare or dad take leave from work.

There was no reason for the dad to be at work. In France if your partner gives birth you get three days off immediately and then a month's paternity leave to take at any point in (I think) the first year.

This is of course assuming that the boy and his new sibling have the same dad. But if they don't, the father of the baby should have been looking after his stepchild.

Even if there is no dad on the scene at all, somebody was bringing that child to the hospital at 7am every day.