Daily Mail reports that the 39-year-old unnamed woman was sentenced last week to six months of electronic surveillance for abandoning and endangering a minor.
The son was forced to steal tomatoes from his neighbor's balcony garden and wrap himself in 3 blankets to stay warm as he did not know how to turn on the heat in the Nersac apartment.
His conditions, however, went unnoticed for a while. He was self-sufficient enough to take the bus to school every day, keep up with his assignments, and he did not raise any alarm to his neighbors.
One of his neighbors told Mail: "He seemed so normal, he lived in the apartment opposite. I saw him coming and going I didn't realise he was there on his own."
Yet another neighbor became privy to the boy's circumstance when she caught him taking her tomatoes to eat. She said: "He would come with another little boy. That's when I realised something was going on and we alerted the authorities."
Another schoolmate stated: "He said to us he was eating on his own and that he would get the bus to school on his own. He said he was living on his own and his mother wasn't with him."
The boy's mother left him at the start of the pandemic to move in with her female lover in Sireuil after divorcing his father. Her Facebook suggested the pair cared for children of their own. Her bio reportedly read: "My family, my happiness is everything that matters. I love you very much."
Before the boy was found by authorities, neighbors had raised alarm to his mother who allegedly told them to mind their own business. She was arrested after the neighbors told authorities about the situation and was charged with child endangerment.
His father lived elsewhere and was not charged.
The boy is now being cared for and refuses to see his mother.
