After running away from his parents in Courcelles-lès-Montbéliard, the young man embarked on a chase with the police at the wheel of the family’s Peugeot 206. His dangerous driving caused three minor injuries.
A 14-year-old teenager stole his parents’ car and embarked on a crazy chase with the police, at 180 km/h on the highway, before going the wrong way, announced this Monday the public prosecutor of Montbéliard (Doubs), Paul-Édouard Lallois. He has since been placed under judicial supervision, said the prosecutor.
Apprehended by the authorities, the young driver had no criminal record. He must appear before the children’s judge within two months, for “deliberately endangering others, theft, fraud, driving without a license”, as well as for all of his traffic offenses.
This event occurred after the young man ran away on Wednesday October 9. He fled at the wheel of his parents’ Peugeot 206 to Courcelles-lès-Montbéliard, with his father’s bank card, the code of which he knew.
The police spotted him driving the vehicle the next day and tried to intercept him. “The young man maneuvered through traffic jams and what followed was a first short chase at 80 km/h in a zone limited to 20 km/h,” explained Paul-Édouard Lallois.
“Quite lunar explanations”
The teenager escaped from them, before being identified again going up the emergency lane of the A36 motorway near Besançon, towards the Jura. The police chased him for 61.5 kilometers. “The young man was slaloming between the cars, going up the emergency lane at 180 km/h,” said the prosecutor.
He then turned around and took the highway in the wrong direction, on the emergency lane, then finally lost control of the vehicle on an insertion ramp. He continued on foot, before being arrested in a village near Dole (Jura). His dangerous driving caused an accident between three vehicles, including a gendarmerie car, causing three minor injuries.
Placed in police custody, “he apologized flatly,” according to the authorities. “This frail kid provided some rather lunar explanations in the face of astounding facts,” said Paul-Édouard Lallois. “He explains that he had problems at college but does not say what.” “What is astonishing is to see that he was able to lead a chase, on an accident-prone section, at 180 km/h, foot to the floor, for so many kilometers.”
The boy “comes from an ordinary family, without worries”, he “had not been talked about, apart from an alternative procedure, in connection with harassment, with other minors”, concluded the prosecutor. Since the start of the school year, he had run away several times.
