On March 19, 2024, it is 7:10 p.m. at Brest station and the last TGV to Paris is preparing to leave. The only controller for the train to Rennes refuses access to the train to a young man “in a state of obvious intoxication staggering on the arm of a friend”. If this refusal, justified for the peace of mind of the passengers, falls within the “public service mission” of the captain, the one who is alcoholic does not accept it. It then becomes “uncontrollable”, according to witnesses, and causes the SNCF employee to “fall” from his full height onto the railway track. Then he leaves the scene, defacing an advertising billboard. Injured in the knee and hand, the controller suffered a total incapacity for work for ten days. As for the TGV, it was immediately immobilized to the great dismay of 150 passengers, 63 of whom had to be taken care of for the night by the railway company. In addition to the practical consequences for everyone, the “damage is significant” according to the company’s lawyer who, this Monday, before the Brest criminal court, requested a referral on the question of civil interests. The perpetrator was arrested the next day, following shoplifting in a Brest supermarket.
At 22, he is addicted to alcohol, cocaine, crack and antidepressants.
From the debates, it emerges that the accused residing in Versailles (Yvelines) has “a multi-addiction problem” to alcohol, cocaine, crack mixed with antidepressant treatments. “His entourage is overwhelmed”, underlines his lawyer, Me François Buffeteau. Questioned on the facts, the young defendant dressed in black jeans and a white shirt in the dock answers: “It gave way in my brain, adding, I do cures and I regret it”. The prosecutor Solenn Briand then recalls her statement made to the investigators: “The inspector played the cowboy”.
In view of his criminal record marked “nil”, the criminal court sentenced him to a six-month prison term with a two-year probationary period, with an obligation to seek treatment and to compensate the victims. “You can start putting money aside!” the president Christophe Subts told him.
