Source: “I drank a gin and tonic and I no longer remember anything, not even if I took the car”
Found on: 2023-01-17 23:36:10
Alfredo LR, the 33-year-old from Porriño accused of causing a traffic accident in Salceda de Caselas while driving on the PO-510 while drunk in which a mother and her minor children died, declared yesterday that he does not remember “practically nothing “of that day. This was stated before the court of the second section of the Audiencia de Pontevedra in the first session of the trial against him as the alleged perpetrator of three crimes of reckless homicide, for which the Prosecutor’s Office requests five years in prison. In addition, he requests compensation from the family of the victims, jointly and in solidarity with the insurance company of more than half a million euros.
The private prosecution, representing the family of the victims, raises the request for a sentence of up to nine years in prison.
The defendant, who after the accident gave a positive blood alcohol level of 2.49, explained that on the day of the events, March 19, 2021, he only had a gin and tonic in one of the bars where he was and that he left of the establishment “in good condition”.
From there, “I don’t know what happened”, he insisted in the trial, and stated that something probably made him feel bad or “he gave me a downturn” because “I don’t usually drink” and if I do, “I never take the car”, he added before the court
But his statement was contradicted by the numerous witnesses who recounted in plenary how Alfredo LR “was drunk, stammered and staggered” in the places where they saw him.
Several of them, including waiters or bar customers, recounted how the defendant fell from his chair and hit the furniture, eventually collapsing on the floor and having difficulty getting up.
The widower and father of the children: “I lost everything”
The statement of the widower and father of the two deceased minors was shocking, when he testified during yesterday’s hearing visibly moved, that in that fateful accident he had “lost everything.” That he is plunged into a depression and that he made the decision to leave Spain permanently and liquidate his three businesses “at a loss” because he found himself unable to move them forward: “I have no reason to live,” he declared.
And the same as the father and three brothers of the 39-year-old mother who died along with her 13 and 16-year-old children, when they recounted at yesterday’s court hearing, the family tragedy they have been living since that fateful day in March . “We haven’t been the family we were all this time”. And visibly affected, they assured that “nothing in life prepares you to see three boxes placed from largest to smallest”.
The driver was going well, and the defendant, at 128 per hour
The account of the Civil Guard agents who testified at the oral hearing maintains that the defendant drove his Renault Megane on the PO-510 (Porriño-Salceda), after having consumed alcoholic beverages in four bars “in an amount that diminished his capacity for safe driving. And according to the conclusion of the Prosecutor’s Office, based on the expert reports, he drove at “excessive speed for his state and the road”, reaching 128 km / h. The car crossed the two lanes in the direction of Porriño, invading the one in which the Citroën C4 was circulating with the victims: the 39-year-old driver and her children aged 13 and 6, all residents of Salvaterra who died on the spot after the brutal collision. Regarding the reconstruction of the accident, all the specialists agreed that the driver was going in her lane and that she was driving at the appropriate speed with her two children, all with seatbelts and the child safety system, while the defendant was going 128 per hour. , ramming in the right front area.
The family, which exercises the private prosecution and requests a sentence of nine years in prison for the accused and regretted that the Prosecutor’s Office limited itself to requesting a 5-year sentence. As he argued, in Spain there are convictions with sentences of more than 10 years for similar events and with fewer victims. The family fears “a small sentence that will not help to turn the page” but rather “increases our situation of anger and impotence.” In addition to imprisonment, the Prosecutor’s Office requests that the defendant jointly and severally with the company Axa Seguros Generales compensate the family of the deceased in more than half a million euros.