A 60-year-old pensioner from the Hérault region was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment on Friday by the Béziers Criminal Court, where she was appearing, after failing to attend two previous summonses to appear before the deputy public prosecutor. The deputy public prosecutor had subsequently referred her to the criminal court for having repeatedly threatened and insulted two firefighters from the Capestang fire station.
Taken to task
In October 2016, firefighters had responded with their ambulance, following a call from Codis 34, to assist a victim of a brawl fuelled by alcohol. During the operation, whilst they were attending to a person with minor injuries, two volunteer firefighters from the Capestang Emergency Response Centre were accosted and subjected to a barrage of abuse, before being threatened by a woman in her sixties who was involved in the brawl.
Complaint by the fire brigade
The firefighters had called in the gendarmes, who were also subjected to abuse before restoring order. The two firefighters who were abused have lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor in Béziers, “ so that incidents of this kind are no longer treated as commonplace. It is unacceptable that firefighters coming to the aid of a victim should be attacked ”, according to their lawyer, Ms Flavie Baumelou.
SDIS 34 awarded compensation
The Public Prosecutor for Béziers criticised the defendant’s behaviour, as she had not deigned to attend two previous plea-bargaining hearings.
The woman in her sixties, who expressed regret for her behaviour on Friday whilst giving evidence at the criminal court, was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment without parole and ordered to pay damages to the two firefighters and the Hérault Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS), who were civil parties in the case.