Story By: Anastasia Smirnova, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@russian.rt.com
This is the heartbreaking moment a sweet little girl says she misses her mother and father but is scared to go back home after they beat her with a stick leaving her hospitalised in intensive care.
The young victim, named Katia, who is reportedly six years old, was taken to a hospital in the north-western Russian city of Saint Petersburg with multiple bruises and haematomas in mid-December last month when this video was shot.
In the footage she is asked by the social worker who it was that caused her injuries and she replies: “Ma and Pa.”
Asked if it was many times that they hurt her, she says “yes”.
She then confesses that she had never told anyone in the nursery or her mother about the beatings, and asked if she misses her mother and father, she replies: “I do!”
But she shakes her head to indicate ‘no’ when asked: “Do you want to get back home?”
Her father Maxim Berdnikov and his unnamed partner reportedly beat the girl because she had peed the bed.
However, local media said evidence later emerged showing that the couple had tied her to her bed all night and she was unable to get up to go to the bathroom resulting in the bed-wetting incident.
Her dad reportedly confessed that he was cruel to the child because of her resemblance to his former wife.
He also allegedly said that he planned to ‘get rid’ of the girl, but was afraid that social services would take away his two other children with his new partner, according to local media.
Following the beating, little Katia spent over a week in intensive care, according to local media.
The child was also found wearing tattered clothes that did not fit her and her hair had been shaved by her dad when she was taken into hospital.
When social services quizzed the girl, she said that she had been repeatedly beaten by her father with a stick and that he in the past also dragged her around by her hair.
Reports said that Berdnikov even tried pulling out some of the girl’s teeth.
The suspect and his new partner have two other children together, a four-year-old boy and a newborn girl, who have reportedly been taken away from their parents by the local authorities.
According to reports, the police learned that Berdnikov and his lover had been systematically torturing the six-year-old girl because she resembled his ex-wife.
The investigation is ongoing. It is currently unclear if Katia’s father or her stepmother have been arrested although police have launched two criminal cases.
Netizen ‘Taira Sayanova’ said: “B*stards, Russia really needs new laws on domestic violence.”
‘Tatiana Verigina’ said: “Why are some people so sadistic? She is such a cute little girl, why would they beat her up?”
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