A prison guard, dependent on the prison of Fresnes, was sentenced on Friday 27 October by the criminal court of Créteil, for violence against an inmate, to 18 months of suspended imprisonment as well as a ban on exercising his profession.
The 41-year-old prison guard, who had already been convicted of similar offences in 2015, worked at the Villejuif semi-liberty unit (QSL), which is part of the Fresnes penitentiary centre. He was on trial for slapping an inmate in April, which he denies.
The detainee said the guard summoned him to a secluded room before slapping him and "putting a broom" on him and then sending him back to his cell, where his cellmate said he noticed his cheek was red.
"Everything and its opposite"
The defendant maintained that he had not touched the detainee, who he said was drunk at the time of the incident. However, the president of the court reproached him for having "said everything and its opposite" during the proceedings. The prosecution, which asked for 18 months in prison, six of which were suspended, asked to "take away this legitimate violence that was given to him".
The prison guard's lawyer, Isabelle Nadal, said the case was "completely flawed". "You are being asked (...) to eradicate (my client) from the public service and sentence him to an extremely harsh sentence," she pleaded.
The civil servant had already been sentenced in 2018 by the Paris Court of Appeal to a ten-month suspended prison sentence and a four-month ban on public employment for violence against a detainee in Fresnes in 2015.
According to the court ruling, seen by AFP, the guard had shown a "lack of self-control" by slapping and grabbing an inmate by the throat in his cell. An administrative investigation was then opened and the supervisor was brought before the disciplinary council.