The case, judged this Tuesday earlier than the prison courtroom of Lilleillustrates an more and more worrying social phenomenon. On March 18, close to Lille, a 20-year-old younger lady, a passenger in a car, died after the motive force – below medicine, alcohol and nitrous oxide – hit a heavy items car.
In the course of the evening, their Citroën C4 Picasso crashed into the again of a truck, on the Lille ring highway. The motive force, aged 22, escaped with some accidents whereas the passenger died on the spot. The investigation opened for road homicide revealed that the younger man had consumed alcohol and medicines earlier than getting behind the wheel. He additionally acknowledged, throughout his hearings, having consumed nitrous oxide whereas investigators discovered a number of canisters contained in the passenger compartment.
As a repeat offender, he faces 20 years in jail.
On Tuesday, the defendant, in pre-trial detention for the reason that occasions, will seem for highway murder with two aggravating circumstances (alcohol and medicines). All in recurrence. Info which make him incur a most sentence of 20 years in jail. “Nitrous oxide is just involved within the second offense for which he’s accused,” explains to 20 Minutes Me Hélène Vatinel, the lawyer for the sufferer’s household.
This second offense is to have violated an order from the prefect of the North prohibiting the possession, transport and consumption of nitrous oxide. The qualification retained is the “violation of a ban or failure to adjust to an obligation decreed by decree or police order to make sure public tranquility, safety or well being”. An offense which is just punished by a 2nd class fineor a fine of 150 euros. For the lawyer for the sufferer’s household, this trial is “not the place for a debate on the results of nitrous oxide on the brains of younger individuals”. Based on her, “typically talking, the true debate comes right down to asking: why do you drive when you could have consumed? “.
A possible reclassification of the information
For his half, Me Antoine Regley, one other lawyer specializing in highway regulation, hopes that the difficulty of nitrous oxide performs greater than a supporting function. “Even when the prototype is introduced into this trial as a secondary factor, I feel that it’ll nonetheless be decisive within the choice,” hopes the black costume. With out setting a precedent, he hopes that the debates will assist him in one other related case: he’s defending the household of Mathis, a younger man killed on November 1, 2025 in Lille by a driver below proto. “Proto consumption is tough to show. We theoretically have a blood take a look at which might reveal it however in such a short while body that it’s nearly inconceivable proof,” laments the lawyer.
On this Tuesday’s case, the defendant admitted throughout his hearings to having consumed proto. “The courtroom can completely effectively retain it in its choice, lastly it could actually reclassify the information as ”below narcotics after consumption and hashish and proto”’, estimates the lawyer of the civil celebration, Me Hélène Vatinel.
The lawyer who will plead on behalf of the deceased lady is cautious to not make a prediction in regards to the sentence. “The defendant is a repeat offender, which implies that the judicial warning was not considered, and that’s the place all of the household’s anger is,” she explains.
