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A FRENCH COURT sentenced a mother of five to a year behind bars for slapping one of her children’s teachers in the face, prosecutors said today, confirming a penalty seen as unusually harsh.
The court in the central town of Roanne went beyond the state’s recommendations in sentencing for smacking the principal of her child’s primary school several times and pulling her hair in front of other children, parents and teachers.
The public prosecutor had called for Elmaz, an ethnic Roma woman from Kosovo, to be given a six-month custodial sentence.
Her lawyer Hugues Roumeau called the sentence “absurd” and accused the court of bowing to pressure from dozens of teachers who demonstrated outside the courthouse over the attack to make an example of his client.
The incident took place in March 2017 at a school in the town of Mably, near Roanne.
On noticing a bump on her daughter’s head, the Elmaz lashed out at the teacher.
The teacher said she was “shocked” by the verdict.
“She didn’t expect that, she wanted the court to recognise the harm caused but not for a mother to be sent to prison,” the teacher’s lawyer told AFP.
Yesterday evening, Elmaz, who was reported by the local Le Progres newspaper to be aged 28 and who is still breastfeeding her youngest child, was sent to prison on the outskirts of Saint-Etienne, about 90 kilometres from Mably.
In court she claimed she was acting in self-defence after being hit by the teacher – claims refuted by witnesses.
Her lawyer lambasted the court’s failure to supply her with a translator, forcing her husband to step in.
He did not say whether she would appeal.
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Any chance we could invite that judge to take up a position with the Irish court system?
Good of France to take in this family from Kosovo and give the children an education….Needs to respect the laws of the country she is in… A sentence is much better than going back to Kosovo….
@John003: how do you know jail is better than kosovo?? have you been to kosovo? doubtful from that comment…
Dead right. Proper order
Proper order. Male or female, assault is assault. If a man went into the school and assaulted a woman teacher like this, I’d say bang him up for a stretch too…Maybe a year is too lenient…
I thought it was a slap not several slaps and hair pulling. 1 year is damn right. kids or not. Nice bit of time to reflect on her actions. No sympathy.
Slap a teacher a year in jail. A man has sex with an 11 year old over there and he gets no jail time as the 11 year old “consented”. Mental country
@IAN HANLEY: thinking the same thing ,would the same law apply if a elderly woman slept with a 11 year old boy
@FlopFlipU: Ahem……. Macron who went on to marry his teacher………??
@Shane McCarrick: so that would be ok then
No messing there. She should have pleaded a hard upbringing
@All Aboard To China: No. That only works in Ireland.
The nasty truth is that corporal punishment was permitted up to 1983. All teachers could use it. The decision to abolish corporal punishment was one of the best decisions the State took. And it took a courageous Minister for Education to abolish it.
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair: Interesting point but is it relevant? I don’t think there was a suggestion that it was the teacher that caused the bump on the child’s head? This is about one adult assaulting another.
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair: I did the leaving in ’94 and the teachers were still dishing out the shiners.
Extremely harsh to put a breastfeeding mother of 5 in prison for a year, 90k away from her home which makes it additionally difficult for her children and husband to visit.
@Maeve Moore: she’ll not do it again anyway
@Maeve Moore: dont do the crime if you cant do the time.
Wish my Da would have battered them b*stards in the CBS, when I think of the b*stards to this day it boils my piss, Christians me hole !
F’ing religion.
@Dave Magee: What article are you reading ffs?
@Dave Magee: Are any of them still alive do you know?
@Dave Magee: They weren’t all in the CBS – most lay teachers used corporal punishment to the extreme and they weren’t very religious either. There was an atheist teacher in a VEC school who shouldn’t have been in a zoo. People’s lives were ruined, but lots of parents were as bad.
@Dave Magee: I did not go to religious National school but the female teachers were just as bad. Nothing has ever been done to them – married to prominent local businessmen. Punched with stoned rings in the side of the head. She done the same to the girls, even her own daughter. This may/may not have contributed to one lads epilepsy in later life. She was consistent and got around to everyone eventually. The attempts at humiliation was the worst part.
@Dave Magee: terrible display of ignorance. Where did you go to school and did you report these teachers to the authorities in recent years during the Irish inquisition.
Haha.
So a 30 year old man having sex with an 11 year old child in walks away from the French courts smiling but this woman is sent to jail for a year???
A sanction is certainly required but sending this woman to jail helps nobody.
have your say