A British anti-hero who features in the hit Ultimate Conman Netflix documentary series is today on the run in France after the alleged attempted murde r of a policeman.
Judicial sources confirmed on Friday that Robert Hendy-Freegard, 51, deliberately drove into the officer while escaping from his hideaway in the rural town of Vidaillat, east of Clermont-Ferrand.
Two gendarmes had called round at the property on Thursday, and Hendy-Freegard reacted by accelerating his Audi A3 at them.
One policeman suffered serious facial wounds including "multiple fractures" and remains in hospital, while the other was treated for lesser injuries.
One judicial source said: "An investigation has been opened for the attempted murder of a person holding public authority. The person responsible is being searched for."
The officers had originally arrived to check up on a Beagle-breeding business Hendy-Freegard was running with his partner, Sandra Clifton, 49.
Hendy-Freegard was jailed for fraud in 2005 after posing as an MI5 agent to convince eight people that they were the targets of IRA terrorists.
He said they needed to cut themselves off from family and friends, while also paying him cash.
Hendy-Freegard defrauded his victims out of at least £1 million, according to court evidence, and was initially convicted of kidnap and given a life sentence.
But this was later overturned, and by 2009 he was out of prison, going on to become the anti-hero in the hit Netflix series, The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman.
By Friday afternoon in France, a large-scale police operation was launched aimed at trying to find the fugitive.
"All the soldiers of the department have been deployed as well as a helicopter from the gendarmerie to try to find this person," said a Gendarmerie spokesman.
Ms Clifton’s children have claimed that their mother was being coercively controlled by Hendy-Freegard, but he denies the allegation, according to the judicial sources.
Hendy-Freegard met Ms Clifton, a registered dog breeder, in 2012, after which he started to pose as a breeder himself.
He showed off his beagles at the Crufts dog show, using a false name, but stopped attending in 2015 when his true identity became known.
Ms Clifton’s son Jake and daughter Sophie, who are aged in their 20s, say they have not seen their mother since 2014, and claimed she has fallen under Hendy-Freegard’s control.
In March, the French authorities issued an order for Hendy-Freegard and Ms Clifton to shut their dog breeding business down.
Robert Hendy-Freegard is said to use the identities David Hendy and David Clifton as he travels around Europe.
French authorities said anyone who spots him should approach with care and called police immediately.
