Former British soldier subjected French village to one-man crime wave, say prosecutors

Peter Seymour is accused of more than 60 burglaries in Surin

Surin is a rural town in central France (Google Street View)

A former British soldier subjected a French village to a one-man crime wave, prosecutors have said.

Peter Seymour, 61, is accused of committing more than 60 burglaries, initially targeting Britons with second homes in Surin, central France, before going after locals.

He managed to avoid a huge manhunt for at least five months by living rough in the countryside for months, prosecutors said.

Seymour took refuges in makeshift tents covered by branches and leaves after he failed to appear before a criminal court in January, where he was convicted and given a 15-month prison sentence.

His disappearance led to a European arrest warrant in case Seymour had returned to Britain and the urgency of the search increased after it was suspected that he had committed 20 more burglaries since his conviction.

“We soon realised he hadn’t gone back to Britain because food started disappearing from people’s fridges again and gas canisters from their homes,” Claudie Memin, the town’s mayor, told The Times.

“One family was burgled eight times. In the village, the children and the old people were very afraid,” she said.

Officers arrested Seymour in a tent inside a thicket and they found about 200 stolen objects, including a television running on a battery, cooking utensils, gas canisters, jewellery, computers, food and drink.

“He is a former soldier and I think he used his military training to escape us for five months,” Captain Benjamin Duval, head of the local police unit, said. “I would not go so far as to say we admire him but we recognise that he has a certain rusticity to be able to survive like that for so long.”

He said that Seymour was “not violent” and did not try to resist either of his two arrests.

Seymour’s family had not heard from him for 20 years and the missing person’s bureau had tried to track him down.

His family said they did not know he was in France or even alive.