Eight years after the death of little Lilian, suffocated with a piece of sausage from the brand, the company was released on Monday July 11. She was being prosecuted for manslaughter. The court of Dax therefore followed the requisitions of the prosecution who pleaded for release on June 20.
Lilian, aged 2 years and 11 months, died on August 11, 2014 in a campsite in Messanges, on the Landes coast, where this family from Bordeaux was staying. That day, on the menu: green beans and industrial sausages that the mother had cut into thin slices, Knacki according to her. But after a few mouthfuls, Lilian had choked, the victim of a “Wrong way” and could not be resuscitated by paramedics
Not enough physical evidence
To justify its decision, the court explained that there was a lack of material evidence in this file. No autopsy was performed. According to the court, it is therefore impossible to say whether the boy choked on a Knacki and also impossible to prove that the family had bought Knacki that day.
The public prosecutor, who had requested the release as at the previous hearing in January 2021, had estimated that a “doubt remained on the brand of sausage ingested by Lilian”, for lack of proof of purchase. At the hearing, Herta’s defense argued that Lilian could very well have ingested a different brand of sausage.
Prevent this tragedy from happening again
Before the deliberation, the family lawyer, Me Courtois explained that “the principal objective” of this trial “was above all to communicate information to consumers to avoid other tragedies.”. For the parents, this trial was not “a question of criminal conviction, it is not a financial question either”.
Lilian’s parents had also filed a complaint in 2017 against Herta, asking for the symbolic euro to prevent the tragedy from happening again. At the time, a message affixed to the back of Knacki packets by Herta recommended “to cut” the sausages “in very small pieces” for “the youngest”. Since 2015, at the request of the Lerbey family, a new mention is present on the packaging: “for children under 4, cut the sausage lengthwise and then into very small pieces to prevent the risk of choking”.
“There was only one step left for consumers to be really informed: it was to be written in red and across the width of the pack, not in a simple little square” explains Me Courtois. This is now the case, since the beginning of 2022.