Joel and Sergine Le Moaligou convicted of causing child's death

French couple who refused to take their sick and undernourished daughter to hospital were sentenced to five years in jail.

A French couple who refused to take their sick and undernourished daughter to hospital and treated her with cabbage and clay compressions have been convicted of causing her death.

Joel and Sergine Le Moaligou, who fed the 11-month-old child on nothing but breast milk were accused of "neglect or food deprivation" after ignoring their doctor and seeking advice in a 35-year-old book on alternative medicine.

A judge sentenced both to five years in jail. However, they escaped prison after part of the sentence was suspended and the time they had served in custody was taken into account.

State attorney, Anne-Laure Sandretto, had called for a 10-year sentence against the couple who were convinced they could cure their daughter's pneumonia with traditional remedies. She also suggested the mother's vegan diet could have contributed to the death of the child, though this was argued over by experts giving evidence in the case.

"We are not here to judge their alternative life style but to decide if this man and this woman have shown a lack of care and caused the death of their child," said Sandretto.

She said the parents had been "blind, and sure of being right" and that this conviction had overridden their love for their daughter.

Dr Stéphane Bernard told the court at Amiens in northern France how the couple had refused to take Louise immediately to hospital after seeing him in January 2008, two months before she died.

"I suspected she was suffering from pneumonia and told them to go straight to casualty for an x-ray and blood test. I told them quite clearly it was pneumonia, which is more serious than bronchitis because the lungs were infected," he said.

"I didn't prescribe any drugs because in my mind it was obvious they'd go to casualty. I didn't even weigh the child as I was convinced they'd do it at hospital."

Afterwards, however, the Moaligou returned home and consulted their books on natural medicine. They continued to treat Louise with mustard, garlic and clay, the jury was told.

Defence lawyer Stéphane Daquo said: "During the nine-month medical check-up they did not follow the doctor's advice to take the baby, suffering from bronchitis and losing weight, to hospital. They preferred recipes based on clay or cabbage poultices taken from what they had read."

The couple's alternative 'bible' was The Natural Guide to Childhood written in 1972, by Jeanette Dextreit, 88, who defended her book in a video link to the court saying it had been written "a long time ago".

"It was book on (child)rearing not a book of treatment. I didn't say to consult a doctor if the illness persisted because, for me, that was obvious," she said.

At the beginning of March, however the Moaligou parents realised Louise was losing weight; at 11 months she was just 5.7 kg, 18% less than she had been six weeks earlier and well below the average weight of 8 kg for a child of her age.

Even so, eight days later the couple cancelled an appointment with their doctor and just over a week later on March 25, Louise died.

Paramedics called to the family home said the baby was pale and underweight.

Earlier in the hearing, Sandretto had made a direct link between the child's death and the fact that her mother was a vegan – shunning animal products including eggs, fish or honey. As the child had been fed on nothing but breast milk, she said this could have led to the severe deficiencies of albumin, protein and vitamins A and B12 making Louise susceptible to the bronchial infection that killed her.

"The problem of the vitamin B12 deficiency would be linked to the diet of the mother," said Sandretto. Reports of her claims sparked furious letters from vegetarians and vegans to The Guardian and local newspaper.

The parents had stopped eating meat and other animal products after "seeing a television programme on the transport of animals to abattoirs", Stéphane Daquo, Mrs Moaligou's lawyer told the court.

However the elder daughter Elodie, 13, was not suffering the same vitamin deficiencies, and other witnesses suggested their rejection of conventional medicine was more of a factor than their diet.

Another doctor, who saw Louise in December 2007, said she was in good health and denied links previously made in court between her death and the mother's vegan diet.

"I saw an eight month old child breastfed by her vegan mother and found her in perfect health," he said.

"We didn't realise the seriousness of the situation," Mrs Moaligou, 45, told the court, her 50-year-old husband added: "We were convinced we could treat her naturally."

The couple only wanted "the best" for their children insisted their lawyers adding the parents were "aware of the mistakes they had made".

(Published by The Guardian - April 1, 2011)