“It is a very complicated case,” says lawyer Pieter van der Kruijs from Den Bosch about the lawsuits surrounding the Stint tragedy. Three of the six sitting days are over. The justice department will come up with the sentence on Monday. What makes this case so complex?
These were days when emotions ran high. The two managers of the Stint companies spoke in court and relatives explained how they still feel the consequences of the dramatic accident on a daily basis.
An electric handcart was hit by a train at a railway crossing in Oss in September 2018. Dana (8), Liva (4), Fleur (6) and Kris (4) died. The supervisor and the then 11-year-old Indy were seriously injured. Research has shown that it was not a technical defect, a malfunction or human error.
Had to wait a long time
Now, more than seven years later, the lawsuit follows. Lawyer Van der Kruijs, who is retired, thinks it is ‘terrible’ for those involved that they have had to wait so long for this. “I think we can hardly imagine what this means for people, including for the managers of Stint,” he explains.
According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), the two companies involved and their executives sold Stints that did not meet the safety requirements between March and October 2018. The hand carts are said to have had technical defects, among other things. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the suspects also modified or falsified manuals and statements.
In the lawsuit, relatives accused the managers of not having said anything or hardly anything after the accident. “Why did they do that so late? Is there a thought behind it: if I say something, it will be acknowledgment of guilt? That is one of the things that struck me,” says Van der Kruijs.
Manslaughter?
What makes this case so complicated, according to the lawyer, is that you must be able to prove the causal link of ‘wrongful death’. There must be a connection between the lack of the Stint and the accident. “The Dutch Forensic Institute has of course carried out the necessary research, but they have not been able to come to anything unambiguous.”
According to him, the statement of the driver of the Stint is important in this. She said she had tried everything to stop the vehicle and get it off the track.
“The judge could take that into account in his evidence: that there is blame,” he explains. “But it is not clear why the driver did not succeed. And that is what the defense will focus on,” the lawyer expects.
Strafeis is guessing
Van der Kruijs can only guess what the Public Prosecution Service will demand on Monday. “The difficult thing with guilty crimes is: you always have something that no one wanted. Not even those people, of course. Have they been so careless that they can be seriously blamed? Because that is what it is all about.”
Here you can read all the stories about the accident with the Stint in Oss.