Doubs: a schoolboy in police custody for setting fire to the gymnasium of his establishment

The Montbéliard public prosecutor's office announced Thursday the placement in police custody of a 13-year-old teenager, suspected of having lit a fire on Tuesday in the gymnasium of his college in Étupes (Doubs) in order apparently to cancel a parent-teacher meeting.

The minor was arrested at midday following several consistent testimonies from students, and went with his mother to the gendarmerie, said the interim public prosecutor of Montbéliard, Paul-Édouard Lallois. According to the latter, several middle school students declared that he had suggested he wanted to set a fire to cancel the parent-teacher meeting that same evening, and he even later confided to a friend that he was the author of the fire.

Damage estimated at “several tens of thousands of euros”

The boy, who remains presumed innocent, was questioned Thursday evening, and will spend the night in police custody before being brought before the juvenile judge on Friday. The prosecution “will require his placement under judicial supervision, including a ban on appearing at school, which will therefore lead to his exclusion from this establishment”, explained the prosecutor, and “result in his change of school”. On the criminal level, the penalty incurred for adults is 10 years of imprisonment, for minors, 5 years. If no one was injured, the damage is significant and will amount to “several tens of thousands of euros” for his parents, “since they are the ones who will be responsible for the financial consequences”.

The boy did have some behavioral problems, but nothing major, and no criminal record. “But (...) he seemed to fear that his parents would learn things during this meeting that he could have hidden from them,” underlined the prosecutor. The fire broke out on Tuesday shortly after 4:00 p.m. during a PE lesson for a 4th grade class in the gym equipment storage room, where gym mats are stored. The police found two lighters abandoned on the road between the college and the gymnasium, suggesting arson.

The suspected student was part of the class that was in progress. The area where the two lighters were found is fenced, and access from the outside is impossible without a key, so that the hypothesis of intervention by a third party was quickly abandoned, the prosecutor further detailed. Analyzes of the lighters in particular had been requested but the investigation accelerated after the hearing of several students.