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Video length: 35 min
In August 2022, in a village in the heart of Creuse, two gendarmes were knocked down during the arrest of a resident who fled. For seven years, neighbors had alerted the police about this individual whose behavior seemed suspicious to them…
The teams of “1:15 p.m. Sunday“(X, #1:15 p.m.) return to a news item that shook France into the torpor of summer almost two years ago. On Saturday August 25, 2022, a man knocked down two gendarmes and fled in Vidaillat, a town of 200 inhabitants in the heart of Creuse. For the villagers, this outcome is not a surprise: Madam Mayor and her administration had unmasked the suspect a long time ago.
Seven years since they alerted the police to their suspicions about this new British neighbor, a very polite fifty-year-old but with behavior that they found strange: his sometimes long absences, and his wife who then seemed to live a recluse, without supplies, with nearly thirty dogs.
“Puppet Master”, a British crook with a serious criminal past
With their own resources, the “spy neighbors” managed to identify the man the English press had dubbed “Puppet Master”: Robert Hendy-Freegard, a “serial crook” convicted in Great Britain for kidnapping, deception and theft from students and women. Since 2014, he had found refuge in their village.
A report by Aude Rouaux, Benjamine Jeunehomme and Matthieu Parmentier produced by France.tv studio.
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