Verbalized without ever having been checked. This is what several young inhabitants of the city of Val-Fourré, in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), claim to have experienced. They have just received fines in their mailbox for non-compliance with travel rules.
"However, I was never checked! I have not come across a single police officer since the beginning of the confinement, "firmly defends one of them, who wishes to remain anonymous, but did not hesitate to send us his fine to prove his good faith.
Another, still on condition of anonymity, admits the same misunderstanding when he has a permit to travel in a professional context. "It is impossible that anyone could verbalize me." Not once have I been asked for my certificate or other document, ”he says.
According to these two young men, they would be at least a "good ten" in the same case in this one district. On the Snapchat network, one of them even presents the nine minutes received at his home without ever having, he also specifies, been the subject of the least control. And after three reiterations, the fine becomes an offense.
Loïc Le Quellec, lawyer at the bar of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), does not count any more the files of people affirming not to remember to have been verbalized and who find themselves, however, in immediate appearance, prosecuted for repeated violation of the confinement. "They were verbalized by a click on a tablet by a police officer, without being checked or notified," accuses the lawyer, who wants it as proof that no information on the circumstances of the offense, or signature, does appears in these minutes.
They consider themselves victims of "verbalization to the facies"
All of them describe what looks like "PV on the fly", a provision provided for by law in the context of traffic offenses: the motorist receives the fine in his mailbox without having been intercepted, but on the sole faith of the police officer who saw the offense or from CCTV cameras.
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Except that this process is not applicable in the context of containment. "Only one adaptation is planned by the Chancellery: that the minutes can be established without the signature of the offender and this, in order to limit direct contact", confirms Arnaud Verhille, the commissioner of Mantes-la-Jolie.
The young people questioned put forward an explanation: to have been victims of a “verbalization with the facies”. "These are often young people in the neighborhoods, presumed to be involved in drug trafficking," notes Le Quellec.
“The police know me, I have a locker, recognizes a verbalized Val-Fourré. Therefore, it is easy for a police officer who does not like me to send me a PV at home for breach of confinement. It's unfair because despite my past, I have the right to go out! "
Some were indeed checked and verbalized for the first time by an officer because they could not produce a certificate derogating from their displacement. But for the following times, the official who had already identified them, can simply pin them to the ADOC automated file (access to the tickets files) ...
"Either they lie ... or else colleagues settle their accounts"
Under cover of anonymity, a police officer does not exclude this hypothesis. "There are not forty solutions," he says. Or all this little world lies. Or they are the victims of a few colleagues who want to settle their accounts with guys they don't like. It is illegal and not ethical. The other possibility is that civil servants pass at the foot of a tower where they notice a crowd. Rather than go down and risk confrontation, they verbalize from afar. It's still illegal, but understandable given the tense context at the moment. "
If they consider these tickets questionable, these residents can write a letter to the public prosecutor (OMP) who will study their case. "There are remedies and if these people think they are in good faith, they will come to plead their cause," explains Olivier Bonnefond, the OMP in the Yvelines. However, they will have to prove that they have not been checked.
The Code of Criminal Procedure provides that the reports of findings of contraventions are authentic, until proven otherwise. “However, this evidence is used to characterize an offense. This is one of the legal problems posed by this offense of breach of confinement, ”specifies Me Le Quellec.
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