French Judge Bites Policeman After Mistaking Police Car for Taxi

A French judge learned the hard way that a light on the roof of a car does not always mean it's a taxi.

Police say a drunk French judge, vacationing in Montpelier on the Mediterranean coast, was so intoxicated he mistook the blue light of a police car for that of a vacant cab and flagged it down, The Telegraph reports.

The judge became agitated when the two police officers refused to drive him to his holiday home tried to bite one of them. To make matters worse, the judge was with his three young children, aged 7, 8 and 10, when the mix-up happened.

The 48-year-old judge had just collected his children on Saturday evening from his ex-wife in Montpellier. After his arrest, the children were returned to their mother.

"I am a deputy presiding judge, take me home!" the judge cried after police informed him they were not a taxi service, according to the police account.

The police said that after trying to reason with the wobbly judge, he "started insulting them and struck one officer in the crotch," The Telegraph reports. The judge then tried to bite one of the gendarmes. After being arrested and hauled off to the police station, the magistrate tried to bite another two officers.

The judge, who works in the north of France, spent the night in a police cell and was charged with assault on Sunday, an offense that carries a maximum of six months in prison and a €7,500 ($9,965) fine. He is expected to face professional disciplinary action.

"It's truly regrettable that a judge behaved in such a manner, but as far as we are concerned, he's a citizen like any other and obviously we couldn't overlook what he did," Bruno Bartocetti of the police union Unité SGP, said.

"Relations between the police and the judiciary are good, contrary to what you might think," Bartocetti said. "The judge has admitted what he did, which is already not bad."