Robert Hendy-Freegard, a conman who had previously served four years in a British jail, has been sentenced to six years in France for ramming his car into two policemen while trying to avoid questioning. The 53-year-old had moved to a remote area of central France under a false name several years ago to breed beagles illegally. His neighbours had already grown suspicious of him before two Netflix documentaries drew further attention to his past criminal activities.
Hendy-Freegard was known for posing as an MI5 spy to swindle women and students out of a total of £1m. While some of his convictions were overturned on appeal and he was released after four years, he was eventually extradited from Belgium after hitting two gendarmes with his car while evading police questioning. He had driven into them in the small village of Vidaillat in central France, resulting in one officer being knocked down and another being flung against the car windscreen for several metres.
Representing himself at the Gueret court, Hendy-Freegard claimed that he had acted out of panic and was not aggressive towards the gendarmes. “I didn’t stop because I’m a human being with emotions”, he told the court. However, prosecutor Alexandra Pethieu argued that the rural area was not a war zone and that the incident had resulted in a bewildering scene worthy of Mad Max.
Witnesses at Hendy-Freegard’s UK trial in 2005 had described how he had taken advantage of them for years. Hendy-Freegard’s arrest and the public’s response led to coercive or controlling behaviour becoming an offense in 2015 in England and Wales. The ex-conman had moved to France in 2015 to start a beagle breeding business with his partner Sandra Clifton, but neighbours soon began to suspect that Clifton was under his control.
Despite Hendy-Freegard’s protestations to the contrary, the trial revealed how manipulative the conman could be. The mayor of Vidaillat, Martine Laporte, stressed that he needed to be stopped, stating that “he really has to be stopped because if he gets out he’ll start again and that’s worrying
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