Domestic Violence: At Lille University Hospital, reports of victims to justice simplified by a new

The agreement signed between the hospital and Lille’s prosecution provides for a first step, with the consent of the victims, before a complaint deposit with the police or the gendarmerie.

Le Monde with AFP

This protocol aims to “strengthen the protection of victims”, “Preventing the commission of more serious offenses”, but also to “simplify the path of the victims”. The Lille CHU will now be able to directly report domestic violence to justice, with the consent of the victims, thanks to a convention signed by the hospital and the prosecution, announced, Monday, February 7, the two institutions in a common statement .

“Until then, women supported by the medicoral unit [UMJ] or Emergencies of the Lille CHU in the context of domestic violence had to go on their own initiative in a police station or a gendarmerie for file a complaint. In fact, many women did not suite, “explain the Lille and the Hospital Center.

Simplified complaint deposit

The agreement signed Friday “allows, now, at the Lille University Hospital to report the facts of violence directly, with the prior consent of the victim, to promote his complaint and accompany him in his subsequent approaches”. “With this new device, patients will systematically be addressed to the UMJ and will be able to complete a reporting form, which will be immediately transmitted to justice,” continues the same source. The victim “will be recontact very quickly by the police to propose to establish a complaint deposit in good and due, by appointment”.

It is specified that the patients opposed to the report will be given “a review report” and “will be informed of the possibility of recontacting the unit after reflection”, add the authors.

The protocol differs from situations which, “in accordance with the law, allow the doctor to remove the medical secret” on facts of domestic violence, without the consent of the victim, in specific cases: “immediate danger to The life of the major victim who is unable to protect himself because of a right-of-way, a minor patient or finally patient being unable to protect himself, because of his age or his physical or psychic disability “.

Similar devices elsewhere in France

A similar device has been set up at the beginning of the year at the Clermont-Ferrand Chu , where the victims can, since January 12, have deposited, from their passage to the hospital, a pre-complaint directly with the Caregiver staff. The latter, thanks to a barcode and a scanning system, then transmit this document to the police who recontact the victim to enable him to file a complaint quickly by a reconvocation system.

At Amiens, in 2020, a similar device had been concluded between the CHU, the police and the gendarmerie of the Somme, as well as the prosecution of the judicial court of Amiens. A victim of domestic violence that comes to the CHU to receive care, without having previously filed a complaint, may complete, if so, a very simple report form sent to the police or the gendarmerie.

/Media reports.