Swindling Brit Stands Trial For Injuring French Police In Getaway

Muhammad Irfan Published February 06, 2025 | 11:56 PM

A convicted British conman who starred in a Netflix documentary appeared in a French court on Thursday charged with knocking over and injuring two police officers in 2022 as he tried to escape from them

Guéret, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Feb, 2025) A convicted British conman who starred in a Netflix documentary appeared in a French court on Thursday charged with knocking over and injuring two police officers in 2022 as he tried to escape from them.

Robert Hendy-Freegard, also known as David Hendy, is the central figure in the documentary "The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman" and the fictional film "Rogue Agent", both available on Netflix.

In 2005, a London court had sentenced Hendy-Freegard to life in prison for kidnapping, deception and stealing from students and women -- from whom he took more than £1 million -- while posing as a spy for MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service.

But he was freed in 2009 after an appeals court overturned his conviction for kidnapping on the grounds that there had been no physical constraint.

Coercive behaviour in an intimate setting, or psychological manipulation, was not a crime in British law at the time.

More than a decade later, Hendy-Freegard, now 53, appeared in court on Thursday for running over and injuring two police officers in central France's sparsely populated Creuse region in August 2022.

"I had enough. I panicked," he told the court in the town of Gueret.

Hendy-Freegard faces up to 10 years if it finds him guilty of the violence against the public officials, which caused them to have to take 21 and six days off work.