He arrived in the box flanked by two CRS in their fluorescent jackets and it was his second visit in three days to the criminal court of Versailles (Yvelines).
Sentenced this Wednesday to eight months in prison for drunk driving, a 51-year-old man, a technician in Mureaux, was tried again this Friday afternoon, for an identical offense.
A few hours after his appearance on Wednesday, the police found him dead drunk in the left lane of the A 13 motorway, at the wheel of an damaged vehicle.
The breathalyzer showed an alcohol level in the exhaled air of 0.98 mg per liter, or 1.96 g in the blood.
Today, he doesn't remember anything.
Leaving the Versailles court this Wednesday afternoon, he treated himself to a bottle of vodka in a convenience store before heading to Issou, where he lives.
Along the way, he decides to settle down at the Morainvilliers motorway rest area, downs the 350 ml of vodka and gets back on the track.
A few kilometers further on, near Guerville, he ends up on the left lane after an accidental sudden turn of the wheel.
He “couldn’t stand” his previous conviction
“It’s because my cigarette fell in the car, Mr. President.
I bent down to pick it up and… there it was.
It’s certain, if I hadn’t been drinking, I certainly wouldn’t have done that,” explains the defendant.
In one go and on the verge of tears, he then takes stock of the misfortunes that have struck him, in an interminable litany.
He “carries his whole family on [his] back, is “bipolar but also depressed”.
He must finance his daughter's studies in Spain.
Watching over her pregnant daughter-in-law and her son who suffers from Tourette syndrome.
His wife is sick too.
“Obviously, it’s not going too well,” he pleads.
On Wednesday, when I heard that I was sentenced to eight months, I couldn’t stand it.”
“Are you aware that you can kill people?
»
“And so, you rush to buy a bottle of vodka, which you have the good idea to consume at a motorway rest area,” cuts in the president, who is starting to lose his patience.
Are you aware that you are a real danger on the road?
That you can kill people?
Today you face two years in prison.
That's the reality.
»
The driver's criminal record shows two convictions for drunk driving and endangering the lives of others, in 2018 and 2022. The Versailles judges sentenced him this Friday to eight months in prison. , to which are added four months in prison as a partial revocation of the suspended sentence pronounced on Wednesday.
He will serve his sentence under pre-trial detention, which allows him to preserve his job while spending his nights in prison.
His license was cancelled, with a ban on taking it again for three years.
One last question for the road: “And my car?”
», he asks.
“Confiscated,” continues the president.
“But it’s my daughter’s car…” laments the vodka lover.