On the thirteenth and final day of the trial of the horrific collision of Millas on December 14, 2017, the public prosecutor sharpened his tone Thursday, October 24, 2024 during his submissions before the Court of Appeal in Aix-en-Provence against the school bus driver. Two years in prison, not just one, was requested against Nadine Oliveira, who was retried after appealing her conviction for “murder and involuntary injuries”. The decision will be made in just over three months.
Safe, secure and confident. At the end of these three new weeks of hearing before the Court of Appeal in Aix-en-Provence and two hours of methodical demonstration, the attorney general Franck Lagier did not want to leave any ambiguity this Thursday in his requisitions on the origin of Milla’s drama and on the responsibility of the school bus driver. “I am sure that Mrs. Oliveira crossed the level crossing while the barrier was closed. I am convinced that she was not aware of the barriers; that she had always crossed when the barriers were raised. Her inattention took six lives and mortgaged 17 others she must bear the consequences of her inconsistency. he insisted in a tone (already) more confident than the prosecutor at the Marseille court in 2022. He regretted the defendant’s absence from the third day of the debate after she had suffered a heart attack on the stand. , in an exact copy of the first trial.
For the prosecution, the hypothesis of “human error”having discarded all the others, today it is the only one.”Undoubtedly“. And “intangibles“. In support of this, the five direct witnesses (the two former SAUR employees, the two train drivers and the schoolgirl in the front row of the school bus) confirm that the barriers were closed when the bus was running. As proof are the fibers of the barrier “which was not found at the front of the bus, but at the back”. Or the results “stubborn” accident experts on the engine block in railway crossing, “which shows that the closed position of the barrier leaves no room for any other interpretation.”
“The case could and should have ended there…” traces the attorney general. Openly criticizes “die-hard defense” by Nadine Oliveira, “who will resist maintaining another reality”, but also “the suspicion of conspiracy which hovers over the file” and “an unfair trial” by appointing private experts. To “to see another doubt in this sea of certainties”.
“A bit as if this file were the chronicle of a foretold calamity…”
“We must stop there in the argument, we have reached the end of this matter”, continues Franck Lagier. Unfolding second by second on this fateful day, December 14, 2017.“At 7:00 a.m. Ms. Oliveira began her text exchanges with her colleague about an evening meeting and they took up Ms. Oliveira’s morning until a few minutes before she left Milla’s school. Her mind was occupied with something other than herself. assigned to do She puts on the sun visor she doesn’t need doesn’t adjust the rearview bus that day […] Arriving at the level crossing, the bus reduces its speed from 12 to 7 km/h. For what? This is of course associated with an extremely late perception of closed barriers. And at 16:7:31… the inevitable happens… And to conclude: “She is an inexperienced driver who got her license just over a year before the facts, after three attempts, with the minimum score, but also an undisciplined driver. And this added to the routine of a journey that had been made for more than three months. Kinda like this file was the chronicle of a foretold accident…”
Although Nadine Oliveira has no criminal record, “his psyche went into protective mode” and that she was probably locked into a deduction (“I didn’t see the barrier lowered, so for me it’s well raised,” she explained), the Advocate General did not fail to remind “that she imposed on the victims an appeals process that she did not impose on herself.” Perhaps in response to the families’ anger and exhaustion that erupted during this “too much” trial, the prosecution then increased its requisitions compared to those at first instance. He demanded 5 years in prison against the bus driver, of which 3 years were suspended. Or 2 years in prison and no longer a year under an electronic bracelet as required and pronounced in 2022 in Marseille. In addition to the cancellation of all his driving licenses with a ban on repeating them for 5 years and a ban on carrying out any commercial activity in the field of transport. Nadine Oliveira has never been imprisoned in this case. The decision was reserved until 7 February 2025.
