Police And Wives In Serious Danger – Criminals End Behind Bars

Run Over a Monaco Policeman at Your Peril

A police officer is issuing a ticket to a motorist on Monaco’s eastern border at Saint Roman. With his back turned to the traffic, he cannot see another car hurtling towards him. Little does he know the driver has drunk a whole bottle of red wine and is almost paralytically drunk. Luckily, another policeman shouts at him to dive out of the way at the last second. Otherwise he would have been run over and likely killed or at least hospitalized and seriously injured.

Subsequently in court the defendant, an unemployed Italian residing in Monaco, says his view was hampered by another vehicle but confesses to drinking a whole bottle of red wine – and was observed staggering when asked by the police to exit his vehicle. It turns out that over ten years previously he had been convicted of a similar serious drunken driving offense. He claimed to not have been drinking in all those years in between but in this latest year had just been laid off from work and was burdened by a dependent mother that he had to attend at all times.

The defence lawyer tried to convince the judges to sympathize and be lenient but to no avail. Had providence not intervened with his colleague shouting to save him the police officer could have been killed. The court immediately sentenced the culprit to six months’ suspended imprisonment, a fine of € 45 and suspension of his driver’s license for eighteen months.

Extreme Domestic Violence with a Hammer and Knife

Domestic discord in the extreme after a marriage of 20 years. It culminated with a hammer brandished, threat with a knife, and assaults with a chair. After 20 years of marriage, absolute fear reigns in the home. The police intervened after the attack on his wife by this late-middle-aged Portuguese unemployed janitor. The victim subsequently spent twelve days in hospital followed by ninety days of incapacity to work. The frightened complainant went through a horrifying experience where the husband had brandished a hammer to threaten her with death and push her brutally.

The defence tried play down the seriousness of the assault. Their story of just pushing the wife away because she got too close sounded somewhat stretched to the Court in light of the facts. There was a psychiatrist’s evidence of an attack of mental disorder, persecution and jealousy.

The Prosecution argued for priority to be given to the safety of the wife by a ban on contact for two years. In addition, a heavy two-year suspended sentence to punish the acts of the accused.

The defence still argued that the man’s aggression was justified by an angry wife who tended to belittle her husband with respect to his conjugal duties. To the point of threatening him with a knife. The Court reduced the requested two years prison to ten months suspended and allocated the sum of 10,000 euros requested as compensation.

Fingerprints Finally Trap a Thief in Disguise

With cameras everywhere, the Principality is not a good target for thieves who break and enter. A young Moroccan man thought he had the answer – wear a hood over his face. And he went about breaking and entering on three nights, typically at three in the morning. His targets tended to be bars and restaurants; his haul relatively meagre, a portable telephone, cigarettes and bottles of alcohol and the like. But the damage created by his breaking and entering could take thousands to repair. His balaclava’s disguise of his features was not enough to thwart the police detectives. He forgot to wear gloves and his fingerprints eventually gave him away. With a series of prior offenses in France and Monaco, including drug offenses, he was headed for serious trouble in Court – whose deliberations he avoided attending.

A sentence of 12 months firm in prison was pronounced and an arrest warrant issued.

Also 2.000 euros were awarded as compensation to one of the bars.