An accident which had serious consequences. On July 14, 2022, a fireworks display entered a family vehicle which was traveling on the evening of the National Day in Besançon. The machine had ended its journey on the comfort of a baby installed in the rear seat of the vehicle. The young child was seriously injured and had to be hospitalized. A second child, more lightly burned, was “very shocked”. The father had suffered from “burns to his hair”.
A forty-year-old suspected of having pulled this device was tried before the Besançon criminal court on Wednesday. “We do not deny that someone fired the fireworks mortar into the car and we understand the distress of the victims’ family,” declared Me Kevin Louvet, lawyer for the defendant. “But there is no objective evidence demonstrating that this is my client. The body of evidence that the prosecutor spoke about at the hearing is based on anonymous information. It is for this reason that we are appealing the judgment,” he added.
A minor who was part of a group of several dozen people present near the vehicle on the evening of the incident was arrested and taken into police custody on July 25, but denied being the author of the mortar fire. Testimonies collected during the judicial investigation then implicated the minor’s father, aged 45. He was sentenced to one year in prison.