Huy: The police officer steals weapons from the police station to collect them because “I have an illness”

The man who had been a police officer since 1999 is said to have started stealing during 2017. He stole the keys to the safe which contained the decommissioned weapons before “serve” and to bring weapons home.

At his home, the police found eight pistols, two revolvers, two batons, eleven sprays, seven lamps and two police armbands… The public prosecutor’s office stressed that the stolen weapons were all loaded and easily accessible when one was at the police officer’s home. A particularly worrying situation.

“I have an obsessive-compulsive personality”

The investigation was unable to determine whether he had resold or transferred some of the items. According to him, if he stole from his employer in this way, it was to satisfy an obsessive-compulsive disorder. “If I committed these acts, it is because I suffer from an illness“, declared the police officer before the Liège Court of Appeal.

The lawyer defending his interests explained that his client had developed this illness because he suffered from a childhood that took place in an insecure climate. Collecting objects would place him in a bubble that isolates him from the outside world.

“This has always complicated my life. I knew it was going to end badly, but the process was underway. I didn’t invent anything. I have an obsessive compulsive personality. I wash my hands dozens of times a day. I am being treated psychologically.“

Following the discovery of the thefts, an investigation began and the police officer was suspended for a year and a half. Then, an automatic resignation procedure was carried out. The man has no criminal record. The court, at first instance, granted him a suspension of the sentence. For the prosecution, this measure is likely to trivialize what remains a domestic theft committed with the aggravating circumstance that the perpetrator is a police officer.

The defense lawyer explained that his client was under psychiatric care and that he was taking medication to treat his problem. He asked the court to confirm the clemency measure which had been decided by the criminal court. The court will make its decision within a month.