Appearing very marked at his trial on Wednesday at the Melun court, comedian Pierre Palmade said he was “overwhelmed” for the victims of his road accident under drugs, for which five years in prison were required, two of which were closed.
“The serious injuries of Mr. the bar of the criminal court of Melun the 56-year-old artist for his first public expression in this highly publicized affair.
Turning towards the benches of the civil parties, his hand on his stomach, his little child's eyes planted in the middle of a livid face, Pierre Palmade addressed them directly to “beg their forgiveness from the depths of (s )we be”.
“I understand their anger. A crazy drug addict crashed into them, it's inexcusable,” conceded the comedian, who became a showbiz pariah with this affair which revealed the dark side to the general public and the decline of an artist stuck for years in his drug addiction, to the point of no longer being able to work.
Noting his recognition of the facts and his commitment to his detoxification, the Melun public prosecutor's office requested five years in prison against him, three of which were suspended on probation, with “the objective of restoring social balance” by denouncing the “scourge of driving under the influence of drugs.
This Friday, February 10, 2023, Pierre Palmade had been partying continuously without sleeping for three days between Paris and his country house in Cély-en-Bière, alternating injections of 3-MMC (a synthetic drug), taking cocaine and parties. of “chemsex” with “sex friends”.
“We are really like zombies, vegetables, naked, bloody,” he describes to the judges. Dozed by 3-MMC, he “wakes up” again with new doses of cocaine to get behind the wheel.
At nightfall, the comedian gets in the car with two companions to go buy dinner at the local supermarket before the arrival of his dealer responsible for resupplying drugs.
“I see all three of us leaving the house euphoric and then it's dark, I open my eyes and I'm (at the) Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital,” says Pierre Palmade, who says he has no memory of the accident.
On his hospital bed, his loved ones explain to him what happened. And there, “I understand that I am in hell”, confides the artist, weakened by a stroke which occurred shortly after.
– 17 months of abstinence –
According to the instruction, in the straight line of a departmental road, the Peugeot 3008 driven by the comedian suddenly swerves off the road and collides with a family's car on the opposite lane.
In addition to the actor, the accident left three people from the same family seriously injured: a 38-year-old man, his six-year-old son and his 27-year-old sister-in-law, who lost the baby she was expecting after the impact.
In the morning, the comedian was confronted in the courtroom with the story of the victims' broken lives. Their vital prognoses for a time compromised, they still suffer today from serious physical and psychological after-effects.
Six months pregnant at the time of the accident, the woman sitting in the front passenger seat underwent an emergency cesarean section. Her unborn daughter, named Solin, was declared dead after 32 minutes of resuscitation, without giving any sign of extra-uterine life.
“It is very difficult for me to be present today in this room, there is a lot of work being done with my psychiatrist,” declared the woman who is now the mother of a two-month-old daughter, who suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
With his left arm in a sling, advancing towards the bar with infinite slowness with the help of a crutch, driver Yuksel Y. described his new life circumscribed by pain and injuries.
“I was a team leader, I had friends, during the weekend I tried to enjoy with my children, my family (…), today I can no longer do this kind of thing,” said he testified via a Turkish interpreter.
For 17 months and his nightclub outing in Bordeaux which made the rounds on social networks and outraged France – even the president of the court, who was moved by it at the hearing – Pierre Palmade has been abstinent. He undergoes urine screenings two to three times a week.
“Before the accident I had really lost the taste for life, and now with the means I have given myself I believe that I have rediscovered the taste for life. I am rediscovering the simple pleasures of friendship, of family, to wake up in good shape, to write personal thoughts”, assured the artist, who does not envisage one day returning to the stage.
