A French appeal court on Sunday sentenced a mother and her ex-partner to 20 years for the brutal murder of her five-year-old daughter whose disappearance in 2013 shocked the country. Cecile Bourgeon, 30, drew nationwide sympathy in May 2013 when she appealed for help in finding the blonde, blue-eyed five-year-old, saying she had disappeared from a public park. But four months later, she and her then partner Berkane Makhlouf both admitted they had buried her in a forest near the central city of Clermont-Ferrand, saying she had died in an accident at home. In 2016, a lower court had acquitted Bourgeon of murder but sentenced her to five years for lying about her daughter’s fate while handing Makhlouf 20 years behind bars. But following a two-week appeal hearing in Le Puy-en-Velay in central France before a nine-member all-woman jury, the sentence was overturned with Bourgeon handed a 20-year penalty for her daughter’s death alongside Makhlouf, 36. Published in Daily Times, February 12th 2018.