© BELGA – Image d’illustration
A policeman from Mouscron was sentenced for writing false reports.
The Hainaut Court of Appeal confirmed on Wednesday the 12-month prison sentence imposed by the Criminal Court, Tournai division, on a policeman from Mouscron who wrote false reports in order to inflate his personal statistics. A simple three-year reprieve takes effect from this day on the prison sentence, but also on the fine of 800 euros forgotten by the court at first instance, for a period of three years.
The young policeman was investigating a wave of car thefts sweeping through the border region. When he had just elucidated 25 thefts, he found a stolen car on the territory of the municipality of Estaimpuis, which is in the Val de l’Escaut police zone and not in that of Mouscron. The car was a few meters from the boundary between the two municipalities.
In order to inflate his personal statistics, the ambitious policeman asked the repairman to move the vehicle to the territory of Mouscron, and he wrote a report considered to be false. The facts took place in January 2019. In September 2019, he wrote another report considered false, noting that a fleeing French car had committed several driving offenses on the territory of Mouscron. The prosecution explained that he had noted “anything” in this report “to justify a chase which was not carried out according to the rules of the art”.
The prosecution had opposed the favorable measure pleaded by the defence. “The judicial authorities must trust the police, otherwise the whole system will collapse and this may lead to the conviction of innocent people. If this penalty prevents him from exercising his work, he can only blame himself.“, said the Advocate General in his indictment.
The police officer had been sanctioned by his hierarchy and he was prevented from rising in rank for a period of five years.
