The driver of the truck who knocked down and then beat up a cyclist in Charente Maritime last January was tried on Thursday for intentional violence.
The Saintes Criminal Court sentenced him to three years' imprisonment, two of which were suspended.
He was also sentenced to an obligation of care and to pay the victim 6,715 euros in damages.
His license was revoked and he cannot retake it for two years.
The scene, filmed last January by the cyclist thanks to a camera installed on his jacket, had shocked.
The driver of a dump truck, accused of deliberately knocking down and then beating a cyclist in Charente-Maritime, was sentenced on Thursday to a three-year prison term, two of which were suspended by the Saintes criminal court.
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He was also sentenced to an obligation of care and to pay the victim 6,715 euros in damages or provisions for damages.
His license having been cancelled, the defendant is also banned from taking it for two years.
The court rendered a judgment in accordance with the requisitions of the public prosecutor against this boss of an earthmoving company, aged 50, who appeared for intentional violence with a weapon by destination.
"I'm going to kick you"
He was being prosecuted for violently assaulting a cyclist, a forty-something self-employed computer entrepreneur, who had activated the camera he was wearing in his jacket and then posted the video on the Internet, which went viral.
During the hearing, which took place in a very tense atmosphere, the 50-year-old denied the facts, maintaining that after the collision between the dump truck and the cyclist, the latter "got up right away .
He threw his bike and rushed headlong towards us”.
The man also claimed to have respected the authorized speed on this communal road and respected the safety distances.
But the images, replayed to the audience, show the driver arriving and saying: "I'm going to give you a beating", before, with his son, hitting the cyclist several times in the face.
"Idiot reaction"
His defender, Me François Dragon, “embarrassed by the emblematic trials”, considered that “you have everything you need with this video to condemn my client;
voluntary violence, in a meeting, but not with the intention of deliberately knocking down the cyclist”.
“Yes, my client is lying.
He had a stupid reaction.
My client defends himself like a fool, I plead for a rough man.
Yes, he needs care,” he added.
The video showed a narrow road in Charente-Maritime, between Royan and Sémussac.
When the images begin, the cyclist has already passed the dump truck to which he has signaled to drive more slowly and to tighten on his side of the road.
In vain, he will say, since he is forced to roll on the grassy side.
The cyclist resumes his journey, but soon hears an engine behind him.
Worried, he plugs in his camera.
Footage shows the dump truck overtaking him and squeezing him to the point of dropping him, then stopping.
The driver and his passenger, who is his minor son, get out of the truck, shout at the cyclist and start beating him, breaking the camera.
Supporting cyclists
As a sign of support, around fifty cyclists in shorts and colorful jerseys had gathered at midday in front of the Saintes court.
“We are here to send a message”, had launched at the microphone Teodoro Bartuccio, president of the association My bike is a life, “this murderer, because when we use a truck as a weapon, we are a murderer, will be condemned ".
For Teodoro Bartuccio, this kind of news item “is regular.
(…) People use their vehicle to get justice”, had previously declared the activist who intends to use this case to change the law and mentalities.
“In this trial everything is filmed.
It is a success to justify a voluntary act”, reacted Michel Benezra, the lawyer for the association of cyclists, seized of the case by the victim while the associative activist affirmed himself “very happy.
Finally, cyclists will be listened to”.
The driver appeared alone, his son, less involved, having been the subject of an alternative measure to prosecution before the prosecutor's delegate.
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