In the courtroom of the court in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Rob Lawrie gets up from his seat and looks around a man sitting in the audience. They communicate by signs, raising both sneak their thumbs. This man just meters from him is an Afghan refugee living in the “jungle” of Calais. At his side, his four year old daughter, Bahar, in her pink sweater, does not seem to understand how it is at the center of attention and wisely plays until the trial begins.
The British 49 year risked five years in prison for trying to smuggle the little Afghan England on October 24, hiding it in his truck. On Thursday, the court of Boulogne-sur-Mer, he was ultimately sentenced only to a fine of 1000 euros suspended, the facts have been reclassified as “endangering the lives of others.”
Reaches of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome
“France is the humane She sent a message. compassion will win can not. let these children [refugees, Ed] live in conditions. We must bring them into our educational system and they will become doctors or lawyers. ” On leaving the court, the former military, having dried her tears, took over the plumb.
But during the trial, the man with the massive frame and assured voice, struggled to hide his anxiety. Bipolar, it also suffers from the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. It creaks and slams teeth, frantically turns his head from left to right. These uncontrolled reactions mark his face when he speaks at the helm in his dark suit too wide. Hours earlier, he had called a press conference in a packed audience of journalists, particularly British. At home, he told his story without stumbling. But in court, stress brings back his annoying tics.
“What I did was an error”
“I can just say it was irrational and stupid. I ‘ actually had not given much thought. It was really on a whim. I could not leave, “he says in English. He repeated what he has been saying for weeks: the father of the little Bahar who asked him several times to take his daughter with him to England, where they have family in Leeds, few miles from home Rob Lawrie.
Heard by the police, the father had tried to clear the Briton explaining first that he had hidden Bahar unwittingly in the van. Before agreeing that there was an agreement, unpaid them. A witness who was playing for the Columbia. “What I did was a mistake but it’s still a child in a difficult situation. I regret necessarily, I’m really sorry but I have great compassion for children in the camps,” explained Rob Lawrie .
“This is a good man. He did not intend to violate the law and it does not intend to do it again,” pleaded his lawyer, Lucile Abassade . Because this case has broken his life: his wife left him, he sees much more his four children and he did it a few weeks ago, a suicide attempt. There is something touching in this big guy, moved to the bar to tell her story and her struggle to which the court was obviously sensible. However, the debates, to everyone’s surprise, were redirected to a charge of endangering the lives of others.
“The end does not justify the means”
“Have you a little thought to the conditions of transport of this girl?” asks the president Louis Betermiez. “I had a very comfortable bed. It had everything we needed, it was warm and safe,” attempts to answer Rob Lawrie.
Not enough to convince the prosecutor, Jean-Pierre Valensi, who felt that the “conditions in which it was transported were unworthy”, provoking a strong reaction back of the room. “She was in a cache 1.30m wide and 50 cm deep and 30 cm high, behind boards screwed. (…) In the event of a frontal impact, it became a cannonball that was going to crash against the windshield, “he said, assuring that” the end does not justify the means. ”
Words that struck many activists and volunteers from Thursday to support Rob Lawrie, with some being forced to stand for lack of room. It is to them and relatives that the British turned once the verdict. But it is pursued by the cameras in the street that he left the court. Within weeks, the man has become, unwittingly, the symbol of support for refugees.
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