A CELEBRITY chef who ran over and seriously injured an Islander outside his restaurant in Belgium last month has been interviewed by the police, according to media reports.
Dutchman Nick Bril, owner of the two-Michelin-star restaurant The Jane in Antwerp, reversed into intern Joe Claridge in the business’s car park on the morning of 8 January.
According to Belgian media, Mr Bril was over the alcohol limit at the time.
Mr Claridge (37) – a chef at Tassili at the Grand Jersey Hotel who was working for Mr Bril after the Island restaurant closed temporarily – is understood to still be in hospital with multiple injuries.
Mr Bril’s lawyer, Omar Souidi, told Belgian media that the chef was interviewed by officers this week.
“My client was extensively questioned about that accident on Wednesday,” he said.
“The fact that this had to happen quite some time after the accident is not unusual in these types of files. On the day itself, my client was unable to be interviewed – he was in shock. The interrogation went well.”
Numerous media reports state that Mr Claridge appeared to already be on the ground before he was struck by Mr Bril’s Land Rover, and that the incident was captured on the restaurant’s CCTV.
“Neither my client nor I have seen those images yet,” Mr Souidi told reporters.
“That is why Bril has now asked to view those images in the near future – to understand what happened there.”
The lawyer added that “every morning Nick Bril wakes up and hopes for good news” about Mr Claridge.
Mr Bril enjoys a high profile in Belgium, having written a cook book in 2018 and been named the country’s chef of the year in 2023. He also recently appeared on the reality television show Special Forces: Who Dares Wins on Belgium’s VTM.
