Death of Morgan Keane: six months in prison required against two hunters

Europe 1 with AFP 6:55 p.m., November 17, 2022

Six months in prison were required on Thursday against the two hunters tried in Cahors for the death of Morgan Keane in December 2020 in the Lot, killed by a gunshot while cutting wood on his property.

Stressing the "seriousness of the shortcomings at the origin of the death of Morgan Keane", the prosecutor Alexandre Rossi requested two years of imprisonment including 18 months suspended against the author of the fatal shooting and 18 months of imprisonment , 12 of which were suspended, against the director of the hunt.

He also asked the Cahors criminal court for a permanent withdrawal of the hunting license of the two defendants and a ban on possessing weapons for five years.

For the prosecutor, "this tragic manslaughter was written".

He noted the "misguidedness of the shooter, and not a simple negligence", specifying that he had been "greatly helped by the director of the hunt" who "failed in the organization" of the hunt that day, surrendering responsible for several "characteristic faults".

Judgment was reserved for January 12.

On December 2, 2020, at the end of the afternoon, Morgan Keane, 25, was mistaken for a wild boar and was shot while he was on his property, in a hamlet in the Lot village of Calvignac.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about it, it's engraved for life, I'm sorry", declared in court the author of the fatal shot, visibly moved, acknowledging not having "identified the target correctly ".

Inexperienced

The investigation revealed that the 35-year-old shooter was inexperienced, did not know the area and had been posted in a poorly chosen location without having received the necessary instructions.

His lawyer, Sylvie Bros, insisted on the "involuntary" nature of his act.

The testimonies of other hunters present that day, put forward by the president of the court, report several irregularities in the conduct of the hunt.

"Nothing was done properly," said Benoit Coussy, the lawyer for Rowan Keane, the victim's brother, questioning the responsibility of the director of the hunt but also of other participants.

A 51-year-old experienced hunter, the hunt director assured that his organization was "under control".

At the end of the hearing, his lawyer, Emilie Geffroy, who pleaded for release, said that his client had "respected his obligations".

"Moral responsibility, yes, criminal guilt, no," she added.

Regulate hunting

The death of Morgan Keane had scandalized his relatives and opponents of hunting in the Lot, who created a collective, One day a hunter, demanding a change in the legislation.

At the helm, Hélène Thouy, lawyer for two associations (One Voice, Aspas), civil parties, pointed to "a real problem of insecurity because of hunting" which worries many rural people.

"It's a hunting trial, it must not become the trial of hunting in general", on the other hand warned the lawyer for the Federation of Lot hunters, Charles Lagier, who underlined the work done by the federation to improve safety.

The latter, which has some 6,500 members, is also a civil party.

A systematic approach in this kind of trial but deemed "intolerable" by relatives of Morgan Keane.

At the end of the hearing, Léa Jaillard, from the collective Un jour un chasseur, noted that the prosecutor had requested "the definitive ban on hunting that we were asking for".

Thanks to the trial, "we understood that it happened anyhow" and that "responsibility is not only individual," she said.

The author of the shooting, who came to hunt in the Lot for the day from the neighboring department of Aveyron where he resides, is under judicial supervision with a ban on hunting, possessing and carrying a weapon since his indictment on December 4. 2020.

In France, the number of hunting accidents has been falling for 20 years, according to the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB).

Nevertheless, for the 2021/22 season, the OFB recorded 90 hunting accidents, compared to 80 the previous season.

Among them, eight fatal accidents, including two involving non-hunter victims.