He said he forced the toll barrier because he “did not want to go to prison”.
Missed.
A 35-year-old man was tried this Wednesday before the criminal court of Versailles (Yvelines) for refusing to comply.
He was sentenced to six months in detention and his driving license was revoked.
It all happened on January 22, at the exit of the Duplex of the A 86. At the wheel of his Ford Focus, this thirty-year-old named Gabriel came across police officers from the anti-narcotics office (OFAST), who came all just to install an interception device near Viroflay.
No drugs in the car, but 37 catalytic converters freshly stolen from a body in Sarthe.
The driver has just returned from the expedition with two comrades on board.
And there he is, face to face with these police officers, stationed on the highway in the middle of the night.
With his foot on the floor, Gabriel decides to charge straight ahead and hits the toll barrier at 150 km/h, forcing an OFAST agent to start chasing him.
“Some stop, others go forward”
“I actually panicked.
I knew we had the pots in the car so I didn't think, explains Gabriel from the box.
But the policeman didn't chase me for kilometers and kilometers: it was just 600 or 700 m.
Today, well… I’m sorry.”
“You know how the reptilian brain works in the face of fear,” tries his lawyer.
Some stop, others rush.
»
The president returns to the file.
“The police explain that they obstructed your escape by blocking your vehicle with theirs.
And that they were forced to take out their weapons.
It’s not nothing,” she insists.
Also read “They take all the risks”: in France, a refusal to comply every twenty minutes
“At 150 km/h in front of a toll gate… The consequences of this deliberate attitude could have been dramatic,” argues the prosecutor for his part.
An independent mechanic in a garage in Seine-et-Marne, Gabriel has already been in prison several times, for aggravated theft, violence in meetings and fraud.
Like the two men who were traveling with him when he refused to comply, he has also been sentenced to 24 months in prison by the criminal court of Le Mans (Sarthe) for the theft of the catalytic converters discovered in the Ford.