Guilty of manslaughter and manslaughter. In his absence, Nadine O., the driver of the school bus which had been hit by a TER on a level crossing in Millas (Pyrénées-Orientales), on December 14, 2017, was sentenced, this Friday, November 18, to five years in prison, four of which were suspended by the criminal court of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). His lawyers immediately indicated that they would appeal.
Still placed in a psychiatric clinic after collapsing at the bar during the hearing at the end of September, the driver will have to serve her sentence under an electronic bracelet. Her driver’s license is canceled for five years and she is permanently banned from working in transport.
The judgment read by President Céline Ballerini remained faithful to the indictment of the prosecution, while the defense of Nadine O., who maintains against testimonies and expert opinions that on December 14, 2017 the level crossing barrier was open, had pleaded for release. The accident killed six students and injured 17 others.
During the twelve days of hearings broadcast live in Perpignan, experts, witnesses, child survivors and parents of victims took the stand, expressing with immense emotion, and often in tears, their pain, physical and psychological, of survivors or parents who have suddenly lost a child “while families were calmly preparing for the end of year celebrations”.
“What we wanted to hear, we heard it: it’s the word guilty”
“We are relieved that it is over. It’s only been a solid year, but she’s suffering, she’s already in her own prison. What we wanted to hear, we heard it: it’s the word guilty ”, breathes Stéphan Mathieu, father of Ophélia, who died in the accident. “We know that the barrier was down, that she made a driving error, a moment of inattention. It’s true that when you see the number of dead and injured children, it’s not fair, but justice is not fair. »
“It’s a decision without surprise! She is found guilty, that is the most important thing. This judgment will allow the victims to leave this drama behind them. Nothing is repaired, but we can look ahead: the recognition, it is there”, analyzes after the deliberation Me Gérard Chemla, lawyer for around forty civil parties and several associations. “She is guilty because she forced the barrier, there is no debate. That she goes to a remand center is not necessarily what the victims expected. We were not there to look for a sentence but for things to be said.
“It’s a feeling of injustice, the feeling that passion and revenge have prevailed over the law, that the SNCF is a State within the State and that, against it, there is no word of the audible defence”, for their part, declared Me Jean Codognès and Louis Fagniez, the lawyers of Nadine O. who specified that their client had not come to the statement of the deliberation because she cannot “exit from the clinic without medical advice”.