Signalements, on France 2, returns to an unbearable true story: the ordeal of little Karine Jambu, mistreated by her parents and raped between the ages of 5 and 7 by one of their friends…
France 2 has scheduled a serious TV film this Wednesday, November 20, during a special evening dedicated to Children’s Rights Day. Reports immerses the viewer in the barely bearable yet true story of Karine Jambu, a little girl mistreated by her parents and repeatedly raped between the ages of 5 and 7, within the family home. Directed by Eric Métayer, who had already co-directed Tickles (the story of Odette, also raped at the age of 8 by a friend of her parents), the program is subtly inspired by one of these ordeals experienced by too many children.
Before Reportsthe story of Karine, born in Rennes in 1997, had obviously been told in the press, at the time of a resounding trial. But above all it was told with courage by the person concerned herself and by her aunt, Laurence Jambu, who managed to rescue her from the clutches of her tormentors. The two wrote a book, entitled “Signalements” (Ring, 2019), like the film that was inspired by it. It starts from the fight of Laurence, this ordinary woman propelled overnight into a waking nightmare.
“At night, he came to pick me up in my bed”
It is in fact this nursery school leader who will discover the horror that her niece suffered. In her book, she will describe her first suspicions towards Karine’s parents from the moment she was born, the reports of mistreatment to social services, including those from midwives in the maternity ward, which remained a dead letter. First there is Karine’s mother, a woman convicted a few years earlier for having killed her baby, the result of rape, with a hundred stab wounds.
Then it was the installation of Roland Blaudy in the family home, this friend of the couple who would change everything in 2002. The individual then left prison where he had served a sentence for child abuse. “Regularly, he gives money to Karine’s mother or father so that they can go shopping,” writes the France 3 website. In exchange for a bottle or a packet of cigarettes, the parents “leave it to him little girl and ask her to be quiet.”
“At night, he would come and pick me up from my bed to take me to the dining room where he slept, on the sofa in the living room,” Karine wrote in the book. “My mother would sometimes come out of her room to go have a cigarette and she would see me naked next to him.” The little girl was then as much afraid of her attacker as of her own parents: “they hit me and insulted me, called me a liar,” she says.
Laurence Brunet-Jambu, the “witch”
Reports then tells how Laurence Brunet-Jambu will put all her energy into removing the victim from the influence of her toxic parents and her rapist. 14 reports will be necessary before things move and the little one is taken from this home of horror. Karine was raped more than 300 times, while Child Welfare (ASE) was convinced that Laurence’s accusations were those of a “liar”. Faced with her insistence, she will even be called “a pain in the ass” or a “witch”. Two police investigations will also be dismissed.
In 2007, Karine was finally taken away from her biological parents, Laurence obtaining custody of the child, who was then displaying developmental delays linked to the abuse suffered. We will have to wait until 2018 for all light to be shed on the atrocity experienced by the little girl: her rapist will be sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonment by the Ille-et-Vilaine Assize Court. Karine’s father will be sentenced to 3 years in prison (including 30 months suspended) and her mother to 2 years.
Laurence Brunet-Jambu will not stop there. She will have the French State condemned for denial of justice, then for gross negligence before a court of appeal. Today, she is president of the Alexis Danan Bretagne association, which attempts to collect and support the voices of children in court. She continues to denounce in the media the dysfunctions of the ASE, an institution created more than 60 years ago and which, according to her, is no longer adapted to today’s challenges.
Reporting “is not as hard as what we experienced”, says Karine Jambu
For ReportsKarine and Laurence Brunet-Jambu were contacted by the production and were able to follow its preparations and its casting. Cécile Bois, known for her role as Candice Renoir for years, was chosen to play Laurence Jambu, Odile Vuillemin to play Véronique, the child’s mother, Bruno Solo an ASE executive as cold as he is confident. Karine is played by Flavie Dachy (between 9 and 13 years old) and Victoria Eber (teenager then adult).
Obviously, Reports watered down the truth to remain watchable. “The film is not as hard as what we experienced,” assured Karine Jambu in several press headlines on the sidelines of a preview. But today she is trying to put this horrible past behind her: “I am quite detached from all that. It’s my story and it will always be there, in me. It’s my life, it will never go away but the pain is no longer the same.”