Hans Urban, Member of the Green Party, has been convicted of the incident with a Google car on his yard near Eurasburg in front of the Wolfratshauser district court. Judge Helmut Berger confirmed on Monday the penalty order for false suspicion and coercion in the amount of 70 daily rates of 150 euros, i.e. 10,500 euros. Urban would not have a criminal record with that, the judgment is not yet final.
The Google driver drove into a pebbled private road in the 43-year-old politician’s yard. When he wanted to turn around, Urban is supposed to prevent him from driving away, to have dropped in front of the car and thus only faked an accident. Finally, two wheel loaders – including one from a neighbor – blocked the Google driver from leaving the property. Urban had denied everything and reported the Google driver himself for assault.
According to his presentation, the Google driver only wanted to update incorrect map material. A private road was not signposted. When he wanted to turn around, Urban ran towards his car with a cordless screwdriver and knocked on the window. The politician positioned himself behind his car and, after being able to turn around, ran in front of his car. He had repeatedly started up very slowly. Urban fell over four times. “He never had contact with the vehicle,” said the man.
This was also confirmed by two experts – the accident analyst Volker Fürbeth, who was engaged by Urban himself, and forensic scientist Jochen Buck. “Urban fell over backwards.” Accordingly, it is not a natural mechanism how Urban fell backwards after the dashcam recordings of the Google car.
Urban lawyers Hartmut Wächtler and Andreas Hofreiter demanded acquittal for their client. Her tenor said her client was angry because he was annoyed that his private road had been listed in the Google map service even though it was a private road. “That is probably the anger of the helpless,” explained Wächtler. Urban only got in the way of the camera car because he wanted to record the driver’s personal details. From his point of view, that was his right. So you couldn’t take action against Urban because of coercion. The same applies to false suspicion. The police officers who were summoned only informed their clients after the questioning. The prosecution cannot rely on this.
According to the prosecutor, it was very fortunate for the Google driver to have turned on his cell phone dashcam. “Without the video recording, the injured party would have had a massive problem,” said Thomas Husband. The videos speak for themselves. “It’s a smear comedy, that’s staged.” The reviewers would have described that you don’t fall like this. The prosecutor demanded a fine of 100 daily rates of 150 euros each.
Criminal judge Helmut Berger remained below in his judgment. He said he had no understanding of urban behavior. As can be seen and heard on the video and sound recordings, the Google driver just wanted to drive away. Urban probably wanted to make an example of the company Google. The fact that he did this on a – to put it bluntly – “little sausage” is absolutely unacceptable. “He had painted his pants full,” said Berger. That became clear through the video recordings.
The recordings show how the Green politician Urban falls four times to the ground in front of the vehicle. In addition, Urban is said to have bitten his finger, according to the Google driver. Then he is said to have wiped the leaked blood on the hood of the car to simulate an accident. Urban himself denied this and only claimed to have unknowingly injured himself in the course of the incident. Judge Berger was convinced of the defendant’s guilt. He has seen many strange incidents, he said. “What is revealed here is completely devoid of understanding.”