面对家中负债累累，法国一对夫妇的解脱之道是：先将5个儿女毒死，然后再自杀，最后全家人去“极乐世界”团聚——这是3年前发生在法国的一宗恶性家庭暴力事件。近日，法国巴黎北部博韦的一家法院对该案作了进一步审理，他们将面临终身监禁的判决。

    据英国《每日电讯报》10月19日报道，法国博韦的这家法院日前宣布，2002年8月，帕特丽夏·卡蒂埃和伊曼纽尔·卡蒂埃夫妇决定给自己的5个孩子注射过量胰岛素，欲将他们全部毒死。在这5个孩子中，小的只有11个月，大的已13岁。当给孩子们注射了胰岛素后，母亲帕特丽夏·卡蒂埃也给自己注射了胰岛素，共注射两次，但药量已经很少。而父亲伊曼纽尔·卡蒂埃企图割腕自杀，但并未留下刀伤。后来，当11岁的女儿艾丽西娅出现呼吸问题时，惊惶失措的帕特丽夏才叫了救护车。3个星期后艾丽西娅死亡，卡蒂埃夫妇随后被捕。

    现年44岁的帕特丽夏原为敬老院的一名护工。她供认说，她给孩子们注射了从敬老院偷来的胰岛素；她用家中最后的一点钱给孩子们买了新衣服，希望他们可以“衣着光鲜地去到另一个世界”。

    帕特丽夏称，当自动取款机停止为他们的信用卡服务后，当技工的37岁丈夫伊曼纽尔建议他们应该自杀，而帕特丽夏放心不下孩子们，他们便决定全家一块“走”。法庭宣布，卡蒂埃夫妇在决定实施毒死孩子和自杀计划时，无节制透支，加上各种贷款，共负债16万多英镑。

    在法庭上，有证人表示，尽管卡蒂埃一家收入很低，负债累累，但他们还时常添置家电和衣物。

    2000年，卡蒂埃夫妇已负债3万英镑，但他们仍购买了一套新住宅。陪审团19日表示，卡蒂埃夫妇因谋杀罪和谋杀未遂罪，将面临终生监禁的判决。

    据精神病专家称，卡蒂埃夫妇属于情绪上抑郁的人。

    当卡蒂埃夫妇接受法庭审讯时，他们幸存的4个孩子都没有露面。而16岁的大儿子和9岁的女儿在拒绝看望父母3年后，最近才第一次同意见父母一面。

    报道说，有关卡蒂埃夫妇的审讯还在继续。

    A couple who saw no escape from their growing debt mountain plotted to poison their five children then commit suicide in the hope that the family would be reunited "in a better world".

    Patricia and Emmanuel Cartier were lured deeper into debt by easy credit and reckless spending, a court in Beauvais, north of Paris, heard yesterday.

    By the time they had decided on murder and suicide, they had 17 credit cards - six of which had been cancelled by the issuers - and an assortment of loans, owing a total of more than ?160,000.

    But only one of the children, 11-year-old Alicia, died. The doses of insulin administered to two brothers and two sisters in August 2002, and by their mother to herself, proved too weak to kill, while the attempts of Alicia's father to slash his wrists left him with no more than scratches.

    Patricia Cartier, a care worker, was in tears as she told the court that she injected insulin taken from the old people's home where she worked into each of the children. She had used the last of the family's money to buy new clothes so that the children would be "nicely dressed when they reached the other side".

    Mrs Cartier, 44, said that after cash dispensing machines began to retain their cards her husband had suggested that they should commit suicide.

    "But I said, 'Who will look after the children?' I wanted to go with them, so that we would all be asleep together."

    After giving insulin to the children, then aged from 11 months to 13, she injected herself twice. She panicked when Alicia developed breathing problems and called an ambulance.

    Alicia never regained consciousness and died three weeks later. Her grandmother, who had been looking after the other children following the parents' arrest, died the same day in a road accident.

    The court heard that the Cartiers, both struggling in poorly-paid jobs, juggled debts between a succession of credit companies as they splashed out on electrical goods and clothing.

    "I had no limit," Emmanuel Cartier, 37, a machine operator, told the court. "If any of the children wanted something, I had to give it. And then, to be fair, I had to give it to the others too."

    He and his wife face up to life imprisonment for murder and attempted murder when the verdicts are announced today.

    The couple's lawyer, Hubert Delarue, is appealing for clemency, saying that they were driven to desperation "by the fatal logic of debt and the poisonous charm of revolving credit".

    Despite owing ?30,000, the Cartiers bought a new house at Laversines, near Beauvais, in 2000. The builders provided a financial adviser who helped the couple restructure their commitments.

    The couple, described by a psychiatrist as "immature, emotionally insecure and depressed", had combined earnings of about ?1,800 a month, collecting an extra ?350 a month in family allowances paid to encourage "les familles nombreuses".

    The daily newspaper Libération, which interviewed the Cartiers before their trial, said they seemed "ideal clients" to lenders even though 60 per cent of applications for credit in France are rejected.

    Mr Cartier claimed that he was seduced by junk mail from credit companies. "It gave me the impression of having money in hand to buy what my family wanted," he said.

    "Without it, I would have worked and eaten, no more."

    As the couple went on trial, there was no sign that their surviving children had come to terms with their parents' actions. Médéric, now 16, and his nine-year-old sister Mathilde had agreed for the first time to confront their parents, having refused to see them for three years.

    The trial continues.