A few weeks ago a man walked into an Apple Store in Dijon, France, and began systematically smashing the screens of all of the iPhones using a steel ball. No, this wasn’t an impromptu torture test designed to assess the durability of the handset’s display, but instead the actions of an agitated man who believed Apple could make some improvements in the area of customer service.
Hardly surprisingly, the perpetrator was held by security and later arrested. This week he had his day in court.
So what exactly happens to a person who wrecks a bunch of smartphones with a steel ball inside an Apple Store? Well, in this case the crime resulted in a hefty fine together with a six-month suspended jail sentence with a two-year probationary period, according to Le Figaro.
The unnamed assailant told the court that on the day of the incident he’d descended into “a state of monstrous anger” after staff at the store had earlier refused to offer him a refund when he complained about his faulty iPhone. With the red mist descending and a steel ball in hand, he then proceeded to take out a total of 12 iPhones, 4 iMacs, and a Macbook Air, according to AppleInsider.
Having weighed up the evidence, the judge this week sentenced the man and told him to repay Apple a whopping €17,548 for his impressively methodical yet worryingly wacky in-store wrecking job.
Interestingly, Apple had demanded the perpetrator cough up more than three times that amount – €60,000 ($65,500) to be precise – for all the ruined handsets and other kit. However, the court arrived at the lower amount as the damaged phones and computers were display models only and were therefore worth less.
