Patrice Evra, the former Manchester United defender, has been given a suspended 12-month prison sentence for abandoning his wife and two children.
The court in Nanterre found Evra guilty of neglecting Sandra Evra and their children from May 2021 to September 2023. He reportedly owes €969,000 (£813,640) in unpaid alimony.
The Nanterre prosecutor’s office confirmed the verdict, as reported by Le Parisien. The court suspended the sentence for two years and ordered Evra to pay €4,000 (£3,358) for moral damages and €2,000 (£1,679) for legal costs.
Evra’s lawyer, Jerome Boursican, announced that they are appealing the decision.
“Mr. Patrice Evra filed an appeal, knowing that he provided his wife with an apartment, a house with a swimming pool in the south of France, and that he lent her almost two million euros for her daily life,” Boursican said.
He added, “A sum that she refuses to return, which is the reason for this trial.”
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Sandra Evra’s lawyer, Nathalie Dubois, commented on the ruling, saying, “I hope that, thanks to this decision, Patrice Evra will finally understand that he is not above the law and that you cannot abandon your wife and children overnight. Even more so when they met when they were 15 and she followed him all over the world to support his football career.”
The couple, who married in 2007 and have two children together, started divorce proceedings in 2020, which are still unresolved. In July 2020, Evra was seen with Danish model Margaux Alexandra, his current fiancée, with whom he now has two children.
Sandra Evra described the day she learned of Evra’s new relationship as “the worst day of my life. I was devastated, distraught.”
“I have been left paying all my credit cards and the Netflix bill. It has taken me a long time to realise what he’s like… he has turned into a rat,” She told The Sun.
Evra, who played 379 times for Manchester United from 2006 to 2014, has not yet commented on the court’s decision.