Justice recently confiscated the phone of a 13-year-old schoolboy from Amiens, who had made homophobic threats on social networks against another teenager. – JESHOOTS-com / Pixabay
Last March, a college in Amiens seized the prosecution for “death threats materialized in writing, by electronic means, because of sexual orientation”, posted on Instagram by one of its 13-year-old students at the against a third-grader, explained the prosecutor of the Republic of Amiens Alexandre de Bosschère, confirming information from
France Blue.
After a police investigation, the defendant was interviewed and summoned before a delegate of the prosecutor, who decided to confiscate his mobile phone, associated with a “penal reparation measure”, taking the form of “educational work. , such as the production of a writing on harassment, the writing of a letter to the victim… ”, specified the prosecutor.
Systematic confiscation of cellphones at the Amiens prosecutor’s office
This measure is “simply the application of a criminal policy” put in place for several months by the Amiens prosecutor’s office, “which consists in systematizing it when a mobile phone is used to commit an offense, (…) such as malicious phone calls, online harassment, threats made by electronic means, or the dissemination of intimate images to the prejudice of a person, ”continued Alexandre de Bosschère.
In this type of case, whether the perpetrators are minors or adults, “we can seize the phone as part of the investigation, to verify that a certain number of elements are found on the phone, then proceed to its confiscation” , he said. “It is considered that this has an educational virtue, to show that there is no acquired right to keep property which has been used to commit an offense”. This measure is “used regularly”, including for young adolescents, he added, estimating to be entered “about once a week with this type of response”.