Previous driving ban was not served on man charged with causing fatal car crash
The man charged with hitting a family’s car in West Flanders on Sunday, killing a couple and their eight-year-old daughter, was given a three-month driving ban in 2021 and ordered to retake his driving test, but the sentence was never officially served, De Standaard reports.
The 50-year-old, identified as Jurgen L, has been convicted of at least 14 traffic offences in recent years. The most recent was from October 2021, when a judge banned him from driving for three months and ruled that he could not get his licence back until he retook his driving test and underwent a series of medical and psychological tests.
The verdict was never officially served, which allowed the man to keep his licence and did not require him to undergo any tests. The West Flanders public prosecutor’s office carried out an investigation this week that did not reveal any mistakes in its procedures.
'Necessary steps taken'
“Normally a verdict is served to the person concerned by the police a maximum of a few months after the verdict. Here this did not happen,” Tom Janssens, spokesperson for the West Flanders public prosecutor’s office, told De Standaard. “However, L was officially registered at his address and the authorities knew where he lived.”
“All necessary steps were taken to have default judgements and disqualifications from driving served on Jurgen L.,” the office said in a press release. Default judgments are always served by a bailiff, but driving bans must be served by the police. The public prosecutor has asked the local police zone to explain why the ban could not be served.
Jurgen L is due to appear at a pre-trial hearing on Friday.
"It is your social duty to behave decently and courteously in traffic"
Meanwhile, SAVE, a non-profit representing the parents of children killed in traffic accidents, has criticised the charge of involuntary manslaughter being brought against the man, who was four times over the legal limit when he hit the family’s car at high speed in the early hours of Sunday morning.
A woman, 30, man, 29, and their eight-year-old daughter were killed in the crash near Ruddervoorde.
SAVE calls the incident “a sledgehammer blow to the face, a razor-sharp knife piercing the heart”.
“If you choose to get behind your wheel stupidly drunk, and then choose to race down the motorway like a speed demon, you choose to endanger the lives of others. You have not made the choice to take responsibility and obey traffic rules,” it said in an open letter. “It is your social duty to behave decently and courteously in traffic.”
#FlandersNewsService | File image © BELGA PHOTO NICOLAS MAETERLINCK
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