French court hands 5-year term to mother who kept baby in car

Tulle (France): A French appeals court on Wednesday sentenced a woman to five years in prison for having kept her baby daughter hidden for nearly two years, mainly in the maggot-infested boot of her car.
The girl, now seven, was permanently traumatised by the ordeal, and today has the mental capacity of a two-to-three-year-old, according to doctors.
Prosecutors say she was kept in a carrycot for two years, usually in the trunk of her mother’s station wagon and sometimes in an abandoned room in the family home in the Correze region of central France.
No one else knew of the baby’s existence.
A mechanic discovered the infant in the filthy boot of Rosa Maria Da Cruz’s car when she took it to be repaired.
Hearing a noise, he opened the trunk to discover the baby naked, filthy and dehydrated. She was surrounded by maggots and excrement.