Essonne district: policemen donate stolen consoles to sick children
The machines were meant to be destroyed but will now delight the young patients of the Corbeil-Essonnes hospital.
The children of the Centre Hospitalier Sud Francilien (CHSF) in Corbeil-Essonnes (Essonne district) are getting a nice Christmas present. For several weeks now, the gendarmes of Mennecy (a town near Paris) have been trying to find the owners of four PlayStation 4 consoles, spotted on classified ads website LeBonCoin and allegedly stolen.
Newspaper
Le Parisien said that after an investigation and a search was done at the receiver, the machines, new and packaged, were seized along with €4,000 in cash. The suspect was unable to justify the origin of the consoles.
The officers then went up the distribution chain up to Le Havre, the city of their arrival on French territory. No theft was reported there and "the public prosecutor decided to destroy the consoles, as is customary with this type of seizure" website
Actu.fr underlines.
Instead of the planned destruction, the policemen chose to entrust the consoles to the hospital, where they will be used for therapeutic purposes.
"It's one way to get them to relax and avoid anxiety and pain," says a spokesman for the hospital.
On the gendarmes' side, the good deed is described with a smile since, as one of the officers admits, "for the first time, we're redistributing stolen goods".
"It's means a lot for their stay here. It's also a way to distract them during a painful act. It's a well-known analgesic method."
