Former Manchester United defender and French national team captain, Patrice Evra, has been handed a suspended 12-month prison sentence after being found guilty of abandoning his wife and two children.
The Nanterre prosecutor’s office acknowledged the verdict, as reported by Le Parisien.
The court decided that he abandoned Sandra Evra and their children between May 1, 2021, and September 28, 2023.
He is said to owe €969,000 (£813,640) in overdue alimony.
The sentence is postponed for two years with provisional execution, and Evra is required to pay €4,000 (£3,358) in moral damages and €2,000 (£1,679) in legal fees.
However, his lawyer, Jerome Boursican, stated that his client has appealed 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.”
Nathalie Dubois, Sandra Evra’s lawyer, commented on the verdict, stating, “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 had two children together, started divorce proceedings in 2020, which have yet to be resolved. In July 2020, Evra was photographed kissing his current fiancée, Danish model Margaux Alexandra, with whom he had two children.
Sandra, speaking to newsmen, described the day she learned of Evra’s new relationship as “the worst day of my life.”
She added, “I was devastated and 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.”
The former Red Devils captain played 379 times for Manchester United between 2006 and 2014, and he had yet to respond to requests for comment on the court’s decision.
