Rather drunk and at very high speed, kill a young woman on a bicycle instantly, and then run away fast. It’s a tough morning in the Haarlem court. When the lawyer enters with the suspect, all heads turn.
Mick turns out to be so confused with his act of July last year that he can hardly speak, other than in short sentences and very softly. His right foot trembles almost incessantly. Stupid, stupid decision, regret, my actions, my fault, I wish I could take it back – they are stifled sentences. That he was ‘incited’ by his friends in the car. After the blow, he felt “threatened” by screaming bystanders, after which he ran away in panic. “I didn’t know what to do.”
All that after a typical night of chilling with friends, with rum-coke and weed. Mick then drove home ‘the boys’ in his mother’s little souped-up Renault. He had drunk so much that one of his mates asked him if he should drive. “Maybe that’s why I did it.” Mick was the only one with a driver’s license.
The case seems watertight. Mick admitted guilt, the speed was deduced from the sensors in the airbags and the location function of two smartphones in the car. From the damaged car, the scattered debris of the bicycle, the spot where Roshita (28) crashed and the skid marks, it was clear where she was cycling when she was hit. And that her light was on. She was probably already halfway across when the car hit her rear wheel; 145 kilometers per hour, 50 was allowed. She was flung 150 feet through the air.
The statements of mother, sister and stepfather go through the marrow. The corridor to the morgue, the badly damaged body, the glass-strewn intersection, fragments of the bicycle, parts of the car, the coroner’s report on file. “I never wanted to read that afterwards,” says the stepfather, who has since described himself as “extremely depressed.” It is told how much humor Roshita had, that she wanted children, for which she had already come up with names. Mother expects her daughter to be alive every day. The hall fights back tears, the judges sit motionless. Mick’s head sinks further and further.
He came to report three hours after the blow. Now he hears the sentence: four years. The family wants almost a ton in compensation from him. Mick already paid the funeral costs of 16,000 euros to the insurer. His driver’s license has been taken away.
The officer blames him for his “calculating behavior”. Running away, remaining untraceable so that his blood alcohol level could drop, declaring evasiveness to the police, unbelievable too. That he thought he was only driving 60, didn’t pay attention to the counter, that Roshita was driving without lights and suddenly appeared out of the bushes. And only now start talking about peer pressure and not already with the police.
When Mick was younger, he was already fined for dangerous driving: driving a souped-up moped and a scooter accident with injuries. The local police officer had about ten alerts for Mick’s road behaviour. And on Facebook he likes to talk about street racing. Since the accident, he no longer sees the friends of that evening. He says to process it “by working. That calms me down.” He talks a lot to his boss about his act – he also sent a letter to the court about electrician Mick. He no longer drinks. He has a fear of leaving the house and suffers from guilt. The probation service considers the chance of repetition to be low and advises alternative sentencing.
His lawyer starts about a mistake by the Public Prosecution Service and the police. Mick’s blood sample was sent to the wrong lab, exceeding the maximum legal deadline for sending. The lawyer wants to have this part of the evidence declared invalid. And further focuses on the hefty requirements for shock and affection damage. Can a stepfather who has only known his daughter since she was 16 qualify for affection damage? And the priority road of the collision “invites to speed”, she believes. She finds the speed measurements “inconclusive”. The fact that the police found a burning bicycle light on the asphalt does not mean that it was also burning on the bicycle. On his ‘last word’ Mick says he sympathizes with the family.
The court sentenced Mick to two years in prison, one of which is suspended, and a four-year driving ban. And compensation for father, mother and sister of a total of 30,000 euros. The sentence is reduced because Mick is very young and showed genuine remorse.