Fulda (dpa/lhe) - After hitting an elderly woman with his car on a sidewalk and fatally injuring him, a 22-year-old man was sentenced to three and a half years in prison by the Fulda district court. The court found the man guilty of an illegal car race that resulted in death and intentionally endangering traffic and driving without a license. The court also ruled that the man had to do without his driver's license for four years.
On August 19, 2022, while fleeing a police check, the young man hit the 71-year-old senior who was walking on the footpath with her walker. A mother with her one-year-old child was just able to jump to the side.
The court did not evaluate the fatal accident as manslaughter, as originally accused, but as a prohibited car race with fatal consequences. The reason: an intention to kill could not be proven to the accused. The accident happened within just eight seconds at a distance of seventy meters - too short to assume that the driver intentionally wanted to kill the completely unknown woman.
The woman did not suffer the fatal head injuries in the collision with the car, but from the impact on the pavement. The 22-year-old could no longer see her at that moment because her body was lying in front of the front wheel like a brake pad.
The accusation of the public prosecutor's office that the driver had trapped the woman between the car and a wall was also no longer tenable from the point of view of the court after a traffic report.
The 22-year-old had tried to escape police control because he was driving without a license. He had had to hand it in four days earlier because he had been driving under the influence of drugs. The judge said: "You can see where great arrogance, excessive overconfidence and indifference to rules can lead." The young man remains in custody because of the risk of absconding. The verdict is not yet legally binding. However, the defense attorney has already announced that he is satisfied with the court's decision and sees no reason for an appeal.
