Almost a year has passed since the fatal accident in Mitterfels, Lower Bavaria, in which an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old died. Since then, for the two survivors, the relatives and the accused driver of the accident, there has been life before June 3, 2023 and after. A 26-year-old has been on trial in the Straubing district court since Thursday. It’s about the accusation of negligent homicide. “I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart,” said the defendant.
According to the indictment, the man drove his car under the influence of alcohol into the oncoming lane, where he rammed a car in which four young people were sitting. A 16-year-old and an 18-year-old survived with serious injuries. The defendant suffered minor injuries.
The public prosecutor’s office also charged the man, who is himself a father, with negligent bodily harm and negligently endangering road traffic. The prosecution assumes that because he was drunk he had to reckon with the possibility of a traffic accident that he had caused and that the collision could have been avoided. There is also the question of whether he may have fallen asleep.
The two surviving inmates and relatives of the young people killed are involved in the trial as co-plaintiffs. Their lawyers criticized the fact that the defendant only wrote to the victims’ families months after the accident. They also doubted whether the defendant wrote the letters himself.
The dead woman’s twin sister says she feels ‘alone’ since the accident
The relatives watched the start of the trial emotionally upset, some in tears. The two survivors of the accident testified as witnesses. The girl, now 17 years old, had suffered several broken bones. She spent weeks in various clinics, was operated on six times and has had severe physical limitations ever since. She interrupted her training to become a nanny. Crying, she explained what she knew from the night of the accident. The judge asked what her life looked like now. “Alone,” replied the 17-year-old. The dead woman was her twin sister. She shared everything with her, the girl said in a shaky voice.
The fact that the driver who was involved in the accident didn’t report immediately hit her hard. It seemed like he didn’t care what she and the others were going through. The second survivor, who was behind the wheel of the car, also reported the serious physical and psychological consequences of the accident. The passenger who was killed was his “very best friend”. They always traveled as a group of four.
The defendant had previously described the evening of the accident from his perspective – also visibly shaken. He had drunk four beers at a friend’s house, but did not feel unfit to drive or tired. He has no memory of the collision. After the accident, he was treated in a psychiatric clinic. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about the accident and the victims, he said. He hasn’t drunk any alcohol since that evening and would like to undo everything. “This has destroyed not only my life but many other lives.”