The 43-year-old man from Assen who drove on a funeral procession at the Hillig more in Eext nature cemetery on 16 August last year, was not allowed to drive a car due to medical problems. He is guilty of careless driving behavior but was not punished. The man was acquitted for attempted serious abuse of a traffic controller.
“What happened is not nothing,” the judge said about the event in Eext. People were on their way to bringing their loved one to a final resting place. In addition, they had to cross the provincial road. The traffic controllers saw no traffic coming and stood on the road. The funeral procession crossed.
From scratch the regulators got a car at high speed from Wieten in their sights. They months to stop crossing the procession. One of the traffic controllers ran the road to attract the attention of the approaching car, but it didn’t reduce.
The controller dived into the road and managed to prevent a collision. The car drove further towards Rolde at full speed. One of the traffic controllers abstained the license plate. Others later described with the police what the driver looked like. The Assenaar was arrested based on that. He no longer remembered the incident because he was treated with a brain tumor during that period.
On March 31, he was without a lawyer for the police judge in Assen. He remained with his story that he was struggling with memory problems due to the chemo treatment. He received a blackout last year and did not remember anything. The judge wanted more medical data to be able to come to a correct judgment, on which the case was postponed.
Today the Assenaar appeared again, this time with lawyer. The medical data supplied were brief, but sufficient to make a decision, the judge ruled. She agreed with the public prosecutor that there was doubt as to whether the man was intended and was aware that he was driving a mourning procession at high speed.
“I don’t know if there was intent. But the judge’s statement of the suspect and his mother have caused doubt,” the judge said. Because of the doubt, the judge spoke the man free.
The man was also on trial to cause danger on the road. The man was guilty of that. Due to an epileptic attack during the treatment, the man was not allowed to drive for six months. That was not justified. He stepped behind the wheel during that period, resulting in the near-drama at Eext.
“You can’t hide here behind behavioral change and cognitive problems,” the judge said. On the other hand, she cannot ignore the personal circumstances of the man, she explained at a hearing. Just like the public prosecutor, she finds a guilty statement for this fact sufficient.