Girl, 13, ‘starved to death by mother because she looked like her father’

An evil mother starved her daughter to death after subjecting her to 10 years of ‘punishment and violence’ for simply resembling her father.

Amandine weighed just 62lbs when she died aged just 13 with extreme weight and muscle loss as well as septicaemia in August 2020.

According to the medical report, the skeletal teenager’s face was swollen and covered in infected wounds.

She had also lost several teeth and had her hair pulled out.

At the time, Amandine had been locked for weeks in a windowless storage room and deprived of food.

Her mother, Sandrine Pissarra, subjected her to this appalling treatment for a decade, a French court has been told.

After admitting her horrific crimes, prosecutors in the southern city of Montpellier are calling for her to be handed a life sentence.

The mum-of-eight reportedly told the court ‘I am a monstrous mother’ after pleading admitting torture and barbarity against her daughter.

When asked why she treated her child so badly, Pissarra, 54, replied: ‘Because she looked like her father.’

She should serve a minimum of 20 years behind bars, prosecutor Jean-Marie Beney told the court.

He told the court that from a young age Amandine was assaulted with brooms, punches, kicks, hair pulling as well as repeated shouting, insults and jostling.

For Pissarra, ‘domestic tyrant, dictator of the home, executioner of Amandine, there can only be one sentence – a life term with a minimum of 20 years served in prison,’ said the prosecutor.

When Pissarra was questioned the day after her daughter’s death in the village of Montblanc, south west of Montpellier, she initially claimed she suffered from eating disorders – a claim not confirmed by anyone else.

She said that on the day of her death, Amandine had agreed to swallow a piece of sugar, a little stewed fruit and a high-protein drink before she started to vomit and then stopped breathing.

The mother, who had been running a nail salon, has eight children from three relationships. She has been in custody since May 2021.

The prosecutor also called for an 18-year prison sentence for Pissarra’s ex-partner, Jean-Michel Cros, who he labelled a ‘cowardly collaborator’ who ‘deprived Amandine of care’.

The 49-year-old, who faces 30 years in prison for having ‘deprived his stepdaughter of care or food’, also admitted the charges against him.

He reportedly told the court ‘I feel enormous guilt about this’.

The investigating magistrate said there was ‘no doubt’ Amandine endured violence from her mother, ‘the sole purpose of which was to drag her into shameful and humiliating agony’.

Her mother deprived her of food, inflicted endless ‘writing punishments’ on her and locked her in a storage room under the surveillance of cameras from a young age, it said.

According to the psychiatric assessment, Pissarra, who was described as angry and violent, was seeking to ‘transfer her hatred’ of Amandine’s father to her.

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