French hitchhiker flips out in New Zealand
September 20, 2016
Cedric Rault-Verpre, 27, lost his composure after waiting for four days in the tiny tourist town of Punakaiki on the west coast of South Island. He ripped a road sign out of the ground and threw it in the river. He damaged another sign by pelting it with stones.
He told judges at the Greymouth District Court on Tuesday that nobody bothered to offer him water during his long wait. Police were unsympathetic."He could have started walking, he would have been in Franz Josef [220 kilometers south] by now," Senior Sergeant Paul Watson told Westport News.
Outside court, the French citizen said New Zealand should be renamed "Nazi Zealand," according to a report in the New Zealand Herald.
Judges have ordered he surrender his passport and appear at Christchurch District Court on Friday. Rault-Verpre is reported to have said he would hitchhike across the Southern Alps to his next hearing, the Herald wrote.
Road contractor Fulton Hogan has claimed 3,000 New Zealand dollars ($2,200 or 1,970 euros) as compensation for damages from Rault-Verpre.
mg/msh (dpa)