Gettliffe’s jail OK: French senator

Nathalie Gettliffe and her infant son Martin seem to be in good health and appear to have been well-treated, a French senator reportedly said after visiting the two at the medium-security Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge.

“I found her in good health and the baby appeared splendid to me,” Senator Andre Ferrand told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency during a French-language telephone interview.

Ferrand, who deals with matters affecting French citizens outside the country, made the visit on Oct. 13 to investigate complaints by Gettliffe’s French common-law husband Francis Gruzelle that Gettliffe was being ill-treated while being held in prison.

The senator described the conditions at Alouette, which houses 128 women in one- and two-person cells without bars on the windows, as “very humanized.”

“It’s obviously no three-star hotel but it appears to be the best possible (accommodation) under the circumstances” Ferrand commented.

Ferrand added that his opinion only represents his “first impressions” not a final judgment on his part.

Gettliffe was temporarily transferred from Alouette to a Lower Mainland hospital last month to give birth to Martin.

She has been held in prison since she was arrested on her return to Canada in April, five years after she went to France with two children from her marriage to Surrey resident Scott Grant.

The children, Max and Josephine, were reunited with their father in June after French courts ordered their return.

The case has generated considerable controversy in France, with supporters claiming Gettliffe was lured back to Canada by the promise her ex-husband would give her custody of her children.

However a statement issued by the Canadian Embassy in Paris after Martin’s birth said those negotiations had broken off before Gettliffe came back to Canada.

“Despite interruption of mediation begun by MAMIF (the French Justice Ministry’s international family mediation service) Ms. Gettliffe, who was several months pregnant, decided on her own initiative to travel to Canada on April 10, 2006, to defend a thesis at the University of British Columbia,” the statement said.

Her trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 20.

Shortly after Senator Ferrand’s B.C. visit, a French internet news outlet reported that Francis Gruzelle plans to begin a hunger strike this Friday (Oct. 27) in front of the Canadian embassy in Paris to demand the return of Nathalie and Martin.

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