The two cases were linked to the Poitiers judicial court on Thursday December 19, 2024. For the same reason: attacks against prison officers. The first at the Vivonne detention center, the second at the SAS, the exit assistance service at Pierre-Levée in Poitiers, a semi-freedom area to allow detainees to benefit from a lighter system and to prepare their reintegration.
It was in October that the SAS detainee attacked the agents. He had just consumed alcohol, beer, which is prohibited. The officers ask him to blow into a breathalyzer. The inmate has no good will. He was sanctioned and the subject of an incident report. Sanction which annoys him since he must be released from detention in February 2025 after thirteen years behind bars.
A minute-long bite
While we try to control him, he throws blows. One of the officers even gets bitten for about a minute. Present at the hearing, he showed in court the trace of the bite still present on his arm, two months after the events.
An event that marked him. On the stand, although he tried to contain his emotion, the mention of his children made him break down. “We definitely think about it. But we must understand that we are not the only victims. When I called my children to explain it to them, it was the hardest part”he expressed before bursting into tears.
The consequences could have been dramatic
The Vivonne prison officers remained more contained. But their emotion is present. The first to present himself, a senior lieutenant, received several blows with a ballpoint pen in the stomach and torso. Without the blade vest he was wearing at the time, the consequences could have been dramatic.
The events took place on December 8. During the distribution of the meal, an inmate in the disciplinary unit gets angry at not being listened to. He speaks French very poorly. According to his version at the hearing, he asked for clothes because he was cold. The civil party’s lawyer specified in her pleading that, even in the disciplinary unit, detainees had the right to their personal belongings.
Frustrated, he throws the meal at the supervisors before grabbing a pen. Versions differ as to whether he had it in his pocket or in his sleeve. The fact remains that he attacks the lieutenant leader several times. He also had a wooden knife on him.
He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with a committal warrant. The SAS detainee received fourteen months in prison, six of which were suspended.
