ENGLISH NEWS: Briton arrested after boarding ferry with his dead mother in car’s passenger seat

A BRITISH man has been arrested by police in Calais, France, after allegedly boarding a ferry with his dead mother in the car’s passenger seat.

French authorities report that a 53-year-old man was arrested in Calais on Friday morning (November 22) with the corpse of his 86-year-old mother sitting next to him. The man explained that he had thought his mother was asleep, adding that she was ill with cancer and had suffered “recurrent falls” as she tried to walk. Officers then noticed cuts and bruises on the woman’s body, subsequently launching a murder inquiry.

Police believe that the elderly woman had been dead for several hours and prosecutors are now trying to establish her cause of her death.

According to the police, the mother and son are originally from Bembridge in the Isle of White, England, and had spent a few days on holiday in France where they own three homes.

Neighbours from one of their properties in La Bost, near Chateau-Chinon in Burgundy, have testified to police, citing that they became concerned when they heard ‘English voices shouting at each other’ on Wednesday evening (November. 20). An investigating source also has revealed that detectives searched the house late on Friday evening and ‘found blood on the staircase.’

We at Euro Weekly news understand that the son was considered to be in fragile mental state at the time of his arrest and has been hospitalised in a psychiatric unit in France.

The Foreign Office have confirmed that an arrest has taken place, but that they would not confirm the identity of the man due to the ongoing investigation in France, saying that “it is up to the French authorities to disclose that information.”