Anaïs Perlot lost her baby Cassius, following he was forgotten by his father in the car on a very hot day in Griffintown, June 22, 2018.
The man had told investigators that he was convinced he had dropped off his child at daycare in the morning on William Street.
When he showed up at the end of the followingnoon to pick up his baby, employees would have informed him that the baby had not been present all day.
The story had its sad ending a few moments later, with the discovery of the small lifeless body aboard the SUV.
After six weeks of investigation, the six-month-old’s father was never charged.
The authorities had come to the conclusion that it was an accident, but for Ms. Perlot, it is a question of negligence.
“It’s negligence, negligence. I hear the forgetting, I hear the explanation, but I don’t think we can today as a society, as responsible parents, say to ourselves that it’s an oversight… It opens up the leads to so many situations that can be dramatic. The smaller they are, the more they are likely to be in danger, and it is our duty to remedy this”, pleads Ms. Perlot.
She intends to file a private complaint once morest her ex-husband at the DPCP.
“If we are able to know if we have forgotten our phone, our keys, when we are responsible for a child we must also ensure ourselves that we are fit, capable”, she insists.
There was no safety net to prevent the incident that took away little Cassius.
“There were shortcomings at all levels, already at the dad’s level, and I was not contacted by the daycare, telling me ‘your son is not here today’. Schools are required to find out, daycares don’t, that’s a problem for me. There are different things that might be done, ”believes the bereaved mother.
Installing a warning device in baby beds would save lives, technologies that already exist, but for which there is no obligation.
Italy was the first country to impose such a device making it possible to notify whether the child is present in its seat or not.
Every year since the incident, the arrival of summer plunges Anaïs Perlot back into terrible memories. The simple fact of circulating in a parking lot makes her hyper-vigilant, hearing stories regarding the deaths of children due to the inattention of adults particularly touches her.
“I fear it might happen once more.”
She finally regrets that no one from the Crown contacted him to explain the conclusions of the investigation.
“When this investigation was placed as an accident I was not contacted, the Crown did not explain to me why […] We must challenge the authorities on the lack of legal support, the lack of transparency, which prevents a parent from completely grieving, and from saying to themselves, indeed, it was an accident, ”she laments.
