Prosecutor Michel Sastre dismissed the «fatality» in this accident, while emphasizing the «exceptional dimension of this tragedy» in which 17 teenagers were also injured, eight of them seriously.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office, which combined the suspension with obligations of care and compensation for the victims, also requested the cancellation of the driver’s driving licenses (tourist and passenger transport) and her prohibition to retake them. for five years.
Nadine Oliveira, 53, is the only defendant in this trial, which has been held since September 19 before the Marseilles court, which has a center specializing in collective accidents covering the whole of the south of France. She is on trial for manslaughter and manslaughter.
«Yes, we are satisfied, but we know very well that it will not lead to five years in prison», reacted Stéphan Mathieu, the father of a child who died in the accident: «It would be fair and symbolic that there should be at least three years in prison, I think. Afterwards as far as the driving license is concerned, it is completely legitimate (…) a person cannot continue to do what he has done in having killed six children and injured 17 others seriously. So yes it is completely, yes, legitimate».
«Children’s lives have been taken away, the physical and psychological health of children has been severely shaken, families destroyed», underlined the prosecutor in his indictment, specifying that «perpetuity» had already been inflicted on the victims.
Granting that this trial was «difficult on all sides», including for Ms. Oliveira, Michel Sastre nevertheless felt that the driver’s «lack of empathy» could have been hard for the victims to live with.
However, «we are not on an accident in which we could see a form of fatality», he estimated at the beginning of his indictment, but a «simple fault»: «It undeniably emerges from the procedure that the accident could only have occurred as a direct result of the imprudence, the inattention» of the driver of the bus, insisted the magistrate at the beginning of his indictment, specifying that «no failure of order technique was observed».
«This crossing of the closed level crossing is the result of routine», this word that Nadine Oliveira «did not accept, she who says she is ultra-vigilant», continued the representative of the public prosecutor’s office. «This routine in which she had immersed herself resulted in her making driving mistakes, not seeing the red lights, the rail lowered, the opposite barrier lowered», he detailed.
«She was content to deduce the lowered position of the runner as usual» without having had the «elementary, fundamental vigilance of any professional driver», added Michel Sastre.
The prosecutor also requested against Nadine Oliveira the definitive ban on having a professional and social activity related to road transport as well as a professional activity related to children.