Five years in prison, including three years suspended, were requested on Tuesday against the driver of the truck tried for homicide and involuntary injuries after a dramatic collision with a school bus in Rochefort, which killed six teenagers, on February 11, 2016. the correctional court of La Rochelle, the prosecutor Clément Incerti requested the maximum sentence for these offenses, accompanied by a probationary suspension thus allowing the defendant to request a modification of sentence for the two years firm, in order “to take into account his personality “.
“He is responsible for a very serious accident, he is not a murderer”
“He is responsible for a very serious accident, he is not murderous”, justified the prosecutor. The public prosecutor also requested an obligation of care and work as well as an additional sentence, the cancellation of his driving license and the prohibition to seek a new issue for 2 years. “The court is faced with a real difficulty, there will be no justice, no good sentence”, at the height of the survivors and relatives of the victims, confronted with “carnage, an immense mess”, recognized the representative of the Public minister.
On the day of the accident, in the early morning of February 11, the defendant Mathieu Saurel, now 29, “failed to close the tailgate (of his dump truck), before hitting the road”. This metal part holding the load in place on the side, which had been left open in a horizontal position at 90 degrees, had literally sheared the side and crushed the seats of a school bus arriving in the opposite direction, with fifteen young people on board.
“A Human Error”
“It is a human error which is at the origin of the accident, and not a technical failure”, underlined the prosecutor. “You are going to have to take into account a fault of inattention, negligence, which is involuntary, dust of faults”, he said at the address of the court. Six teenagers aged 15 to 18 were killed and two other young people seriously injured in this accident which stunned the region and caused a strengthening of safety standards in this type of truck. The deliberation will be delivered in a few weeks.