A hunter received a two-year suspended prison sentence for fatally injuring Morgan Keane, a 25-year-old young man who was cutting wood a few dozen meters from his house in Calvignac, in the Lot, on December 2, 2020. His license of hunting was also permanently withdrawn from him. The Cahors court also sentenced the director of the hunt, also on the bench of the defendants, to an eighteen-month suspended sentence and a ban on passing his hunting license for five years.
During the trial, on November 17, the public prosecutor of Cahors had requested this suspended prison term, but had accompanied it with a request for six months in prison against the shooter. At the hearing, the shooter had recognized and regretted his “error”. ” Sincerely. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it, it’s etched in my head for life, ”said Julien F., a 35-year-old Aveyronnais who had been practicing for a short time and had chosen this activity to “air the head” after the loss of the daughter of his companion, a few months earlier.
Julien F. had told how, when the light was dim, he had fired, mistaking a dark mass for a boar. “The mace goes up the undergrowth, I take aim, then I lower my weapon. I saw it come down a bit and stop. It was no higher than that. I waited, I aimed and I fired. I did not identify the target well, I agree with you, ”he replied to the president of the court who questioned him.
Reignited the debate on hunting
If he had not cleared himself during the hearing, not seeking to deny the facts, the director of the beat, Laurent L., a 52-year-old Lotois, had tried to minimize his responsibilities. However, one of the common threads of the trial was the non-respect of the hunting rules during this hunt, “in delirious conditions in terms of security” had even underlined the president of the court. “He didn’t know the land, he understood during the reenactment that the plots around him were prohibited for hunting. What was missed the most were clear and simple instructions”, had pleaded Sylvie Bros, Julien F’s lawyer for his defense, specifying that today, the young man was “hated by anti-hunting and hunters also “.
Because this affair had aroused a wave of emotions and revived the debate on hunting. Morgan Keane’s friends have indeed created the collective “One day a hunter” which, thanks to an online petition on the Senate website, resulted in the plan unveiled at the beginning of the week by the government, for better security conditions. . But who swept away the request for a day without hunting, requested by those close to Morgan Keane.