Father ‘killed son in washing machine’

POLICE in France have charged a 33-year-old father with murder after he allegedly killed his three-year-old son by stuffing him into a washing machine and turning it on.

The man, identified in reports as Christophe Champenois, was charged with “murder of a minor” in the city of Meaux near Paris, court sources said.

The boy’s mother, Charlene, was charged with failing to prevent a crime and failing to assist a person in danger. Both were being held without bail.

A source connected with the case said the child appeared to have died from “a blow to the head”.

Neighbours said the boy, named Bastien, died after his father put him naked in the washing machine to punish him for getting into trouble at nursery school.

A neighbour, who gave her name only as Alice, told journalists she had seen the boy’s body after his mother had come to her apartment for help.

“I took the little boy in my arms, he was frozen, completely naked. He was all white, limp, practically like a toy,” said Alice, who lives in the same apartment building as the couple in Germiny L’Eveque, a town of 1,300 people.

“I took him in my arms like a broken doll,” she added.

“I felt the last beat of his heart. Charlene didn’t move. She was red all over. She didn’t understand he was dead.”

Alice said the boy’s mother had attempted to resuscitate him with heart massage but failed.

A source connected with the inquiry said the man was denying the charges and asserting that the boy had fallen down the stairs.

But witness testimony and tests on the body were “consistent with the fact that the child was put into a washing machine”, the source said.

The source said the father had apparently been punishing the boy for misbehaving at his nursery school.

The child had apparently thrown a drawing by a classmate down a toilet earlier that day.

The source said the child had been repeatedly abused, including by being locked in a cupboard for hours.

“Bastien was an unwanted child,” claimed Evelyne, his grandmother.

“On the day he was born, his father was out drinking and when I told him he had a son, he said that he didn’t want him.”

“A 33-year-old man has been arrested for murder of a minor,” said a local police spokesman.

“The man’s wife has also been arrested for non-assistance of a person in danger.

“This man... will be held in custody until a date for his trial can be set.”