France: Woman, 80, convicted of killing daughter

A court in northern France convicted an 80-year-old woman today of killing her disabled and bedridden daughter, but it spared her from serving any prison time.

Leonie Crevel was the sole caregiver for Florence, 42, who was partly paralysed and blind.

Crevel was accused of tying a rope around her daughter’s neck in July 2004 and pushing her off the bed before calling police.

The court in Rouen, Normandy, ordered a two-year suspended sentence for Crevel, who collapsed into her lawyer’s arms and cried when the verdict was read.

“I’m relieved,” she said simply. Defence lawyer Jean-Francois Titus, who had pleaded for her acquittal, said the court took into account his client’s “personal situation, what she lived through, and once again law and justice prevailed.”

In the two-day trial, doctors and experts testified that Crevel had always cared well for her daughter and thought she was doing what was best for her.

“She saw it as an act of love, because her daughter is at peace now,” said psychologist Jean-Jacques Lefevre.

The prosecutor had asked for a tougher sanction, a five-year suspended sentence.

“This was not euthanasia,” said prosecutor Delphine Miennel. “Florence had the right to live, even if she was heavily disabled. Florence never asked for that her suffering be brought to an end.”