Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Man Utd icon Evra gets suspended prison sentence after ‘abandoning family’

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Former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra has been given a suspended prison sentence after allegedly failing to pay his ex-wife almost £1million in alimony

Patrice Evra has been handed a suspended prison sentence by a judge in France(Lindsey Parnaby/AFP)

Former Manchester United and France football star Patrice Evra had been handed a suspended prison sentence for failing to pay close to £1million in alimony to his ex-wife.

Judges in the Paris suburb of Nanterre ruled that Evra, 43, had effectively ‘abandoned’ Sandra Evra, 42, and their children – a boy who is now 19 and a girl, aged 10 – between May 1, 2021 and September 28, 2023.




Lawyers for the footballer immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict, which followed years of litigation. Evra, a multimillionaire following a hugely successful playing career, was alleged to owe his ex-wife a total of €969,000 (£814,000) in unpaid alimony.

“The sentence was 12 months in prison, suspended for two years,” a prosecuting source at the Hauts-de-Seine Correctional Court said on Friday. “Mr Evra’s legal team immediately appealed.”

Evra was also ordered to pay his ex-wife €4,000 (£3,360) for moral damages and €2,000 (£1,700) in legal costs.

Nathalie Dubois, Ms Evra’s barrister, said: “I hope that, thanks to this decision, Patrice Evra will finally understand that he is not above the law and that we cannot abandon our wife and children overnight. Even more so when they met at the age of 15 and she followed him all over the world to support his football career.”

Jérôme Boursican, for Mr Evra, insisted to Le Parisien that ‘the facts are disputed’ by his client. Mr Boursican said: “Mr. Patrice Evra appealed, 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. A sum that she refuses to return, and this is the reason for this trial.”

Evra enjoyed a successful playing career with Manchester United and France(John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)

The Evras married in 2007, but divorce proceedings were instigated around 2020, when the former Manchester United, Juventus, and Marseille defender was pictured kissing Danish model Margaux Alexandra.

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