A 35-year-old Irish man is in custody in France in connection with the death of a baby boy on the French Côte d'Azur last Tuesday. His 21-year-old girlfriend, who is also Irish, is due to be placed under judicial investigation this afternoon.
The couple’s newborn baby was found dead by police, wrapped in a hotel towel and a plastic bag and hidden behind a curtain in a hotel corridor three days ago.
The couple had arrived in Théoule, near Cannes, on Monday evening.
The woman, who lives in Luxembourg, was due to be notified last night that she was to be held in pre-trial detention in hospital. However, a judge was unable to get to Cannes last night and so this notification will happen this afternoon instead. The judge has to do this in person.
The public prosecutor in Grasse, in southern France, Mr Raymond Doumas, asked a magistrate to put the mother under investigation for the voluntary homicide of a child under the age of 15.
"We believe the infant died because he was killed," Mr Doumas told The Irish Timesyesterday.
"We think he was suffocated. The autopsy showed that the child was born alive and viable. Regarding suffocation, the pathological analysis is under way, and we'll be absolutely certain in three or four days, but it is very likely."
The man, a teacher from Dublin, was taken before a magistrate at the courthouse in Grasse, late yesterday.
The prosecutor asked that he be placed under investigation for failing to assist a person in danger - the dead infant - and for failing to denounce a crime.
The prosecutor asked that the Irishman hire a lawyer, in addition to the court-appointed counsel.
The prosecutor said that French law made no distinction between voluntary homicide and premeditated murder.
Both could lead to life imprisonment. "The aggravating circumstance is that it was committed against a child under the age of 15," he added.
Being mis en examen, or placed under judicial investigation, falls short of formal charges and does not necessarily lead to prosecution.
If the couple are subsequently charged and tried, the woman would risk life imprisonment, and the man a maximum of 10 years.
Mr Doumas said that in similar cases French juries usually passed less than the maximum sentence, between eight and 12 years for the murder of the infant and several years for the person who failed to intervene.
