Vendée: she kills a 17-year-old motorcyclist while making a U-turn in front of her house

His first words were to the victim’s family.

A puny figure, a marked face, drawn features. Wearing a ponytail and dressed all in white, the 33-year-old mother who appears at the bar, this Monday 1^is July 2024does not forgive himself for this careless mistake which sends him ahead the criminal court of The rock on yon pour ” manslaughter “.

A banal U-turn in front of her house

This morning of February 13, 2024, it is 7:30 a.m. when she begins a U-turn to leave her house, in La Meilleraie Tillay, at the wheel of her Kangoo. A banal and daily maneuver. The stay-at-home mother is getting ready to take two of her daughters to school and college. That day, the eldest is on an internship with her father.

A mist taints the already weak light on this early February morning.

It took a quarter of a second for his life to change. And let that of Bryan*, a young man of 17, be taken away. His moped hits the front driver’s side door of the car by Laure*. The violence of the shock was such that the window shattered.

The teenager died on the spot after the arrival of emergency services, from “numerous head and chest trauma” caused by the collision.

” I have not seen it “

Investigators do not find no trace of alcohol or drugs. No excessive speed. No slippery roads. Just the fatal mistake of inattention.

“I didn’t see him,” sobbed Laure at the stand, still upset by the tragedy.

I searched my memory, I rehashed the scene. I would never have set out on the road if I had seen the young man.

She and her two daughters will be the only witnesses to the tragedy, which tore apart the two families.

Two devastated families

That of the victim, Bryan, a 17-year-old young man in apprenticeship. Attended the first year of the professional mechanical baccalaureate in La Roche-sur-Yon, he worked part-time in a company in La Meilleraie Tillay.

“Bryan was not your average young man. He wasn’t addicted to social media or game consoles. He loved helping out, gardening, and tinkering with his grandfather.

His mother had just signed him up for accompanied driving.

She had bought an old 4L so that he could restore it and drive it once he had his license. For this destroyed family, “the loss of this child is insurmountable,” adds Maître Jérôme Dora.

Victims of harassment

Laure, she had to moveunable to overcome the sight of the scene of the accident, right in front of her house. The house has been put up for sale. The family is staying with their mother-in-law in Deux-Sèvres. Her two eldest daughters have been victims of harassment.

“They were accused of being criminals. I had to change schools,” says the mother. But the children refuse treatment.

For her part, Laure is “deeply hurt,” in the words of her lawyer, and “feels guilty for her family.”

She is being monitored psychologically. “It’s very hard to live with that,” she says soberly at the bar.

Lack of visibility

The public prosecutor, Fiametta Esposito, admits that this tragedy “is not one that magistrates judge easily”.

But she refuses to explain this death by “fate”.

“You are driving a vehicle, you want to turn around, there is fog, rain. You give up. You can put on your hazard lights, you will turn around a little further, in a safer place, a roundabout for example. And so, you avoid Bryan’s death.”

To defend her client, the defendant’s lawyer recalls the banality of this U-turn.

This is an unfortunate maneuver that we have all been led to do at one time or another. She carried out the checks, she did not see Bryan’s headlight.

“My client had never committed any offence. Her only fault was to have turned around that day when she lacked visibility.”

The prosecutor requested, “with great sadness, for Bryan’s family but also a little for Mrs. D.” one year suspended prison sentence, cancellation of your driving license et the ban on ironing it for three months. A sentence followed to the letter by the court.

The civil parties obtain compensation for the damage suffered. Funeral expenses will be covered for €12,000. The father and mother of the young man killed obtain €30,000 each for “the loss of affection”, and the three brothers and sisters €14,000 each, as do the victim’s grandparents.

* Names have been changed

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