Two brothers sentenced in Lyon for broadcasting the death of a high school student
In January 2019, images showing the fatal accident of a 15-year-old girl run over by a bus in the 1st arrondissement had gone viral on social networks. Two brothers were given a suspended prison sentence on Tuesday June 21 for the dissemination of these images captured by the video surveillance cameras of the City of Lyon.
A little over three years ago, on January 16, 2019, Johanna, a 15-year-old girl died, hit before being run over by a C3 bus in Lyon, near the Hôtel de Ville. A week later, the scene reenacts on whatsapp and other social media quickly going viral, with the child’s own mother eventually seeing this “morbid viewing“.
On Tuesday, June 21, the Lyon court sentenced two brothers to 10 and 6 months in prison suspended for the dissemination of these images captured by the video surveillance cameras of the City of Lyon. The investigation established that the first, a municipal agent from the General Supervision Department (DSG) had filmed the video on one of the screens before sending it to his wife and brother. The latter then broadcast it to five other people on WhatsApp, including fellow highway repairmen. The starting point of a viral spread. Recently sworn, the agent already knows that it is forbidden to “go out“service videos.
Read also: Lyon: comment on the video of a fatal bus accident arrived online?
The defendants assume to have “do the idiots”
Dismissed after his fault, the agent and his brother, aged 40 and 42, assumed at the bar of the court to have “do the idiots” AFP report. Turning to the mother of the young high school student, who summed up the extent of her trauma in one sentence “I saw my only child being killed, also in front of my eyes“, the ex-agent said during the hearing”I sincerely apologize, from the bottom of my heart.”. For him, “the but was not that it ended up on the internet“. The intended objective “was to tell my wife and my brother, the two people who are close to me and who produced in town, to be careful“.
In this case, the prosecutor, Marie-Charlotte Fiorio, did not hesitate to denounce “a fascination for the violent image which questions“, insisting on “the gap between the lightness of a behavior and its extremely serious consequences”, before requesting 5 and 4 months suspended sentence against the defendants. The sentences handed down ended up being heavier. In addition, the court ordered a medico-legal expertise to identify the damage suffered by the victim’s mother, granting her 8,000 euros in provisional compensation.
Collomb and Keolis targeted by a complaint from the mother
Last January, the latter, represented by her lawyer Me Jean Sannier, filed a complaint for manslaughter against Gérard Collomb, former mayor of Lyon, and Keolis, the company in charge of the operation of Lyon public transport. The investigation into this tragic accident is still ongoing.
Read also: Teenage girl killed by a bus in 2019 in Lyon: her mother files a complaint against Gérard Collomb and Keolis