Seven years after the tragic accident in Millas, the appeal trial of the bus driver, Nadine Oliveira, opened in Aix-en-Provence. Among the civil parties, Alicia Poveda, who had a leg amputated after the accident. She hopes justice will be served.
Dressed in green, Alicia Poveda, 19, expressed her determination at the opening of Nadine Oliveira’s appeal trial in Aix-en-Provence. “I wait for her to be guilty and us to be victims, for good“, she confided to the journalists from France 3 Occitanie present at the hearing. Alicia, a bus passenger during the Millas accident in 2017, had lost a leg after the collision with a TER. “I think about it every day, every day when I get up I have one leg missing, it has ruined my life, that of my parents, of everyone around me“, she explains with emotion. She also recounts how this tragic event turned her life upside down: “I became an adult overnight, at the age of 13“. Today she hopes to get an apology from the driver.
Seven years after this tragedy which cost the lives of six schoolchildren and seriously injured eight others, including Alicia, Nadine Oliveira returned to justice. Sentenced at first instance in Marseille to five years in prison, four of which were suspended, for homicide and involuntary injuries, she remains convinced that the level crossing barriers were lifted. “If the barriers had been lowered, she obviously would never have crossed this level crossing“, affirms his lawyer, Me Jean Codognès. He also specifies that his client, auburn hair cut short and dressed in black, “absolutely wants to attend his trial” this time, after having had to leave the proceedings at first instance for health reasons.
The driver, who had used this N.25 level crossing nearly 400 times before the tragedy, firmly maintains her line of defense, rejecting the idea of having forced the barriers by bringing a group of 23 schoolchildren towards Saint-Feliù- of Avall. This unchanged position arouses the disappointment of the parents of the victims, starting with those of Teddy, one of the deceased children. “The first trial had made it possible to move forward on a lot of things, and they had come away relieved. But they don’t expect much from the appeal trial“, regrets their lawyer, Me Éric Moutet. “What is important, I think, is if this time she will be able to take on the trial, to be there.”
This second trial, scheduled until November 25, is taking place with a reduced presence of the civil parties, with only around twenty young victims and parents being present in the courtroom. The proceedings will be broadcast live at the Perpignan judicial court, while the question of Nadine Oliveira’s responsibility remains at the heart of the discussions.
Written with Laura-Laure Gally, Romane Sabathier and AFP.