A new procedure to hide a collective shipwreck? By referring the matter to the Superior Council of the Magistracy (CSM) against Clémence Meyer, a deputy of the Auch prosecutor, Gérald Darmanin pointed out the serious negligence which preceded the murder of little Lyhanna, 11 years old, found dead at the beginning of June 2026 in Gers. The Minister of Justice criticizes the magistrate in particular for not having checked the background of Jérôme Barella, now indicted for the murder and rape of the schoolgirl, nor for having set a progress point with the investigators.
This targeted indictment comes two months after the submission of a 95-page interministerial report, released to the press Thursday evening. Produced to analyze this tragedy, the document contains many other structural flaws that have gone under the radar. From local police to state servers, the document shows how the entire system failed.
A spam filter blocks a crucial alert
On March 13, 2026, a foster home sent an urgent report to the Auch public prosecutor's office. A minor has just denounced inappropriate actions by Jérôme Barella during a summer sleepover. This email will never reach its destination. The report reveals that a ministry spam filter blocked the message, without sending a failure notification in return.
Convinced of having done what was necessary, the sender thought the courts would be seized. For its part, the prosecution was never aware of this new report. “This failure to receive messages deprived the prosecution of essential information in this case which could have led it to open a new investigation and to be more directive,” deplores the report, specifying that it was technically impossible to send an automatic error message.
Calls for help ignored by an investigator
The gendarmerie investigation then found itself completely paralyzed for four months, from mid-February until Lyhanna's disappearance at the end of May 2026. The mother of a previous victim nevertheless telephoned the Lectoure brigade eight times, sometimes on the verge of tears, to find out the progress of the investigations. The director of investigation never followed up.
To justify himself, this very experienced soldier cited a period of high activity, marked by agricultural demonstrations and drug cases. The inspectors brush aside this excuse and criticize an unacceptable attitude. “This lack of reaction and this wait-and-see attitude arouses incomprehension and constitutes a culpable failure,” conclude the authors, emphasizing that the checks to be carried out before placing the suspect in police custody could have been completed very quickly. The report also points to the “failing” hierarchical control of his brigade. His superiors never checked the real progress of the investigations, leaving this officer to act in total autonomy.
Ten months lost for a postal formality
The document finally highlights the danger of divestments, this procedure consisting of transferring a file from one court to another. The handling of a previous complaint clearly illustrates these administrative burdens. In March 2023, the police closed their investigation and sent it by post to the Auch public prosecutor's office. Noting the absence of a registration number, the Gers registry returned the procedure, again by mail, to the sending court in Béthune.
The file will sleep there for several months. A Béthun magistrate finally signs the transfer at the end of November 2023, but Auch does not record the return of the paper file until January 2024. Results of these back and forths by mail, an investigation completely suspended for ten months for a simple question of stamps. The interministerial mission deplores a “manifestly excessive delay” causing “degraded treatment of the procedure, including the attention paid to the victim”.
A magistrate thrown out to pasture according to a union
These revelations shed new light on the decision of the Minister of Justice to target the only prosecutor in Auch. A focus arousing the anger of the Union of Magistrates (USM). “We are surprised by the discrepancy between what the report says on the failures, which relate to responsibilities that are not its own, and the referral to the CSM suggesting that everything rests on it,” says Audrey Bailleul, national secretary of the USM, contacted by 20 Minutes.
The union deplores having learned of this dismissal through the press, an expeditious method having failed to prepare the magistrate to undergo a “media surge”. Currently on sick leave, the substitute has never been able to officially deliver her version of the facts to the inspection. “We are reaching the situation where the rights of this magistrate do not even reach the level of the rights granted to any defendant,” scolds Audrey Bailleul. The union representative assures her, her colleague “obviously has things to say” to contest these accusations on the merits.
