Three men who were to appear Monday in Valencia, including two for domestic violence and the third for a narcotics case, were released for lack of an escort available to extract them from prison and send them to court, we learned Wednesday April 28 at the prosecution. Due to a lack of prosecution, the released suspects could not be placed under judicial supervision.
Arrested during the weekend, these detainees were to be tried in immediate appearance Monday afternoon, said prosecutor Alex Perrin, confirming information from France Bleu Drôme. But Monday morning, the regional branch of the Authority for the regulation and programming of judicial extractions (Arpej, which falls under the prison administration) announced that its agents based at the prison in Valencia could not perform this mission.
According to France Bleu Drôme, a mandatory training day for the latter explains their unavailability. Contacted by Agence France-Presse, the interregional directorate of the prison administration was not able to communicate on the case immediately. In such a case, the mission then falls to the police services. But the departmental public security directorate was also unable to allocate the necessary staff due to an outbreak of Covid-19 in the Valence police station.
Safeguarding victims of domestic violence
The virus affects in particular the legal aid brigade, which replaces the prison escort services if necessary. “On Monday our operational capacity, because of the patients we have and contact cases, did not allow us to carry out this mission”, declared the director of the police force in the Drôme, Noël Fayet, at the microphone of France Bleu, assuming a choice “Rare”. “Since the beginning of the year, we have devoted more hours to these extraction missions than to road checks, for example”, he added.
Members of the Valence aid and legal aid brigade are already mobilized this week to ensure the security of a trial session at the Drôme Assize Court, according to the police. The suspects are summoned to appear in court, freely, on May 31. “But we made sure that the victims of domestic violence are made safe by warning the gendarmerie brigades concerned”, explains the prosecutor, who specifies that a telephone “Serious danger” was also urgently assigned to one of them, ” at least “.