This Tuesday, January 31, a 44-year-old police officer was judged in the correctional court of Tours for a strange affair. She was eventually sentenced to six-month suspended prison sentence and a six-month ban on practicing. What are we accusing him of? It all started with an SMS sent to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to denounce the dysfunctions of his police station in Tours.
Problem, she recovered the famous number, for personal purposes, by consulting the Processing of criminal records (Taj). A file, accessible to all police officers and magistrates in France, which lists the people implicated in criminal cases as well as their victims. The name of the minister appears there for having been prosecuted in a case of sexual harassment, breach of trust and rape (he benefited from a dismissal, confirmed on appeal on January 24, 2023).
“My client, within the framework of the law, denounced, under article 40, a officer who had simply written a false police report. However, in a mind-blowing way, this police officer benefited from “a classification without follow-up, even though the offense was constituted”, reacted, at the microphone of RTL, Me Marc Morin, the defendant’s lawyer. And to continue: “This denunciation did not spread in the press. My client simply does his duty and the only answer she received was to be prosecuted in the correctional court of Tours”.
Placardisation
After the famous SMS addressed to Gérald Darmanin, the police officer was (suddenly) confined to simple administrative tasks. For his part, the Minister of the Interior did not directly respond to the message. Her chief of staff took care of it, specifying that “the placarding” of which she was the object “was not acceptable” and that the hierarchical superiors of the police officer were asked to “reinstate her in her post”.
A survey of theIGPN, the police of the police, was expedited. 50 police officers from the Tours police station were heard. It should be noted that the court did not completely follow all the requisitions of the prosecution which demanded, in addition to six months of suspended prison sentence, eight months of prohibition to exercise.
The policewoman’s lawyer has nevertheless indicated his intention to appeal this court decision. “It should be remembered that all police officers in France consult the TAJ without being prosecuted in corrections“, he assured after the rendering of the verdict. “It is not conceivable that in the file appear only the elements in charge and not those in defense”.
