A Chief Warrant Officer of the gendarmerie was sentenced by the Boulogne-sur-Mer court to a fine of 1,500 euros for the vol of a mobile phone committed in respect of a migrant.
The facts date back to November 15, 2019 in Calais. That day, a mobile gendarmerie vehicle is on patrol. A truck driver comes to meet the soldiers. Three migrants are hidden in the back of his truck. The gendarmes invite the small group of migrants to get out of the vehicle. They are left free. But one of them takes out his cell phone to film the scene. “From then on, a 47-year-old chief warrant officer from the Paris region seizes the telephone and orders the migrant to leave. Subsequently, it turns out that the soldier kept this phone for him.“, Relates the daily The voice of the North. A person, dealing with migrants, will then come and file a complaint for the theft of this phone.
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“I asked my colleagues that this story stay between us“
The Boulogne-sur-Mer judicial court tried the chief warrant officer last Thursday. The soldier did not deny the facts. At the bar, he also admitted to having asked his colleagues to cover him. And therefore not to say anything to the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie (IGGN). “I didn’t really realize I kept the phone on me. Afterwards, I got rid of it as quickly as possible. Despite everything, a little later, it is true that I asked my colleagues that this story stay between us ”, said the defendant at the bar, still according to the Voice of the North. The chief warrant officer was eventually sentenced to a tort fine of 1,500 euros.
More and more delicate interventions
This tense scene between migrants and the police is reminiscent of the climate that reigns in Calais and its surroundings. Migratory pressure has been constant there for several years. The A 16 motorway, in both directions between Calais and Coquelles, is regularly the scene of crossing attempts. Migrants try to get into the trailers of heavy goods vehicles bound for Great Britain. Around the Channel Tunnel, the police must face increasingly delicate interventions.
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