Dad jailed for killing son, 3, in washing machine

A French man, who displayed an usual bestiality towards his three-year-old son by stuffing him into a washing machine and setting it on for five minutes until the baby died, has been jailed for 30 years.

The father was allegedly punishing his son for bad behavior.

Christophe Champenois, 37, and his wife initially told the police that their son, Bastien, had drowned in the bath.

However, their five-year-old daughter, who witnessed the incident with her mother, told the family doctor that her brother was put in the washing machine as a form of punishment.

Champenois allegedly locked his naked son into the machine and surfed the Internet while his son suffered inside the running machine.

The boy’s mother, Charlene Cotte, 29, worked on a puzzle with their daughter during the incident.

She was jailed for 12 years, for “aiding and abetting murder and violence”.

When Champenois removed Bastien from the washing machine and noticed that he was no longer breathing he said: ‘At least he won’t bother us anymore.’

A neighbour who came to the apartment to help described Bastien as ‘frozen, completely naked. He was all white, limp, practically like a toy.’

However, in an interview with Le Parisien published Tuesday, Cotte said she had tried to save her son and that Champenois had pushed her away from the washing machine.

Cotte’s lawyer Gerard Zbili described her as a “broken woman who lost the child that she loved” but who was unable to protect him out of fear of her husband.

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Zbili added that Cotte had been regularly beaten by Champenois and claimed she had never taken part in punishments inflicted on Bastien.

However, Cotte did admit to watching her husband put Bastien into the machine and turn it on.

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