Il quibbles around a bus stop. “Do you see the bus stop? », he keeps repeating, miming a rectangle in the La Rochelle criminal court. This Thursday, June 27, a 78-year-old man was on trial for manslaughter. Not a word of apology will come out of his mouth towards the son and mother-in-law of the victim, Oléna Banova, 50 years old, who died under the wheels of her car on November 7, 2023. “You see the stop of bus ? », he continues to mime.
That day, late in the afternoon, the sun was low. In Lagord, rue du Moulin-Vendôme, Oléna Banova, a Ukrainian who arrived in France in 2018, crosses the street. When she had just crossed half of the pedestrian crossing, she was hit. Under the horrified eyes of three high school students waiting at the famous bus stop, his body bounced off the hood. The driver suddenly brakes, causing her to fall back onto the road, before restarting and running over her. “She died of asphyxiation,” says the lawyer for the civil parties, Mr.e Victor Domingues. The front wheels weren’t even touching the road!” Oléna Banova’s prognosis was engaged. She died on November 17 in Poitiers where she was airlifted to the emergency room.
“Not much empathy”
Me Domingues is angry. On the stand, as during the proceedings, the septuagenarian claims that there was no pedestrian crossing, that she was coming from the right while all the other witnesses say she was coming from the left. He does not deny having hit her but insists on details, this bus shelter, this absence of pedestrian crossing, denies having started again, as if “it was the victim’s fault, that she had thrown herself under its wheels, “M. gets annoyed.e Domingues: We have no doubt that it was an accident, but why doesn’t he say that it was because of the low sun, that he didn’t see her?
This attitude, if it plays on the nerves of the civil party, it worries the prosecutor Soraya Arhas. “The defendant’s explanations bother me, as if he wanted to give up. That doesn’t show much empathy. It doesn’t reassure me to see him behind the wheel. » Called to the stand, the victim’s son pays a dignified tribute to the deceased. “She was very careful. He was my only family member, I have no brothers or sisters, my father is dead. I have 1,500 photos in my phone, 90% are images of her and me. »
Cancellation of permit
On the defense side, it is especially important to save the license which the Public Prosecutor’s Office has just requested to be cancelled. “Canceling the license amounts to social elimination,” argues M.e Alexis Garat. He was never talked about. A prefectural medical commission gave him back his driving authorization in February 2024. He needs his vehicle. »
The court sentenced him to 18 months in prison with a simple suspended sentence, cancellation of his license with a ban on re-taking it for two years and confiscation of the vehicle. As a final word, the defendant wished to clarify that “as the accident is described, it is not the reality for me”. The court cut him off before he spoke about the Bus Shelter again.
