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A man who beat his four-year-old son and turned a blind eye to the abuse his partner was inflicting on the boy as well, until she killed the child, has been granted a statutory release on his 46-month sentence.

Francis Bastien, 35, was granted the release because he will soon reach the two-thirds mark of the sentence he received in February 2015, after he pleaded guilty to criminal negligence, assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon. A charge of manslaughter through criminal negligence was withdrawn on the same day he pleaded guilty.

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Bastien’s son, Jeremy Bastien-Perron, died on Dec. 6, 2008, after being taken to a hospital when he fell unconscious inside the Montreal apartment of Bastien’s then-girlfriend, Stéphanie Meunier. A paramedic and one of the first doctors to examine Jeremy were shocked by the amount of bruises and signs of injury that covered his body.

Meunier, now 38, was arrested two weeks later and charged with first-degree murder. Experts who testified at her trial at the Montreal courthouse said the boy’s injuries revealed he had been severely beaten in the days leading up to his death and was killed by a blow to the head.