The testimony of Tarnaise Coralie Pailhès, who lost her 17-year-old son in a road accident, prompted the establishment of support for the families of homicide victims in the Tarn. A unique protocol.
“The families of the victims are the forgotten ones”, loose Coralie Pailhès who lost her 17-year-old son on August 4, 2017, mowed down by a driver on a road near her home in the Pyrénées-Orientales. And since then, this woman, who now lives in Lacabarède in the south of the Tarn, “to flee” and no longer meet the man responsible for the death of her son Lionel who lived in her village, is fighting for better care of the families bereaved by a tragedy on the road too often abandoned to their sad fate.
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And she is on the way to winning this battle thanks to the prosecutor of Castres and the prefect of Tarn who, in support of her testimony, are in the process of setting up an unprecedented system in the department to support the families of homicide victims.
“When we tell you that your son has died, we give you a flyer and then it’s thank you and goodbye when it’s a chasm that opens under your feet, a descent into hell, we’re alone, we is incapable of anything, we are disconnected, we do not understand what is happening to us”, says the one who created an association “Lionel and the other victims of the road” to do prevention in schools and writes a “unwinding” book.
“I did not understand and we do not explain anything to you”
A testimony that moved the public prosecutor of Castres Chérif Chabbi who met Coralie Pailhès during a round table on road safety in Mazamet. “For the first time, I felt someone who was listening and who wanted to do something, indicates Coralie Pailhès who remembers what she had to endure after the death of her son. Already in the hospital they took me for a fool because I didn’t understand what brain death was. Then I was told there was going to be an autopsy when Lionel was a victim. I didn’t understand and we’re not explaining anything to you. We waited 13 days to recover the body and organize the funeral. My son’s things were returned to me in a garbage bag, it’s not humane. Then, we receive lots of letters with many administrative procedures to do. Sending a death certificate to your son’s school is very hard. »
Then it’s the criminal course, an obstacle course, just to choose a lawyer. “We had three different ones before finding one who mastered traffic offences,” recalls Coralie. Not to mention the “judicial jargon” incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. “Fortunately, I had my eldest son who was doing law and my daughter who supported and helped me”, continues the Tarnaise who thinks of less surrounded families. This is why this protocol has provided for a maximum of cases.
“It is an emergency but long-term support. We hold hands until the end”
It was within the framework of a local victim assistance committee co-chaired by the prosecutors and the prefect that the idea of this system was launched last October. “We started from the difficulties that Mrs. Pailhès had encountered to develop it and open it to all relatives bereaved by a homicide, whether voluntary or involuntary, confides Chériff Chabi who relied on an interministerial circular of December the latter which aims to improve the announcement of deaths. This first requires training for the police and elected officials and all the actors who will intervene throughout the chain”.
“Families Take Life”
But the protocol, which should come into force in the spring, goes further with an assessment made within 12 hours which “allows you to know the degree of support needed by relatives”. An assessment modeled on what is already done in terms of domestic violence. Then the accompaniment is done until the trial. “It is an emergency but long-term support. We hold hands until the end”, specifies Chérif Chabbi who relies on the know-how of the judicial association of Tarn, a structure for aiding victims, which has a psychologist, a social worker and a lawyer for complete “legal, administrative and social” support. This includes arranging good taxis as well. “We are unable to drive to go to the morgue when we announce the death of your child”, testifies Coralie. Hotel nights are also envisaged for families coming from afar.
If Coralie Pailhès has managed to get things moving, she still has fights that are close to her heart. Like the notion of road homicide rather than manslaughter for stronger criminal penalties. The person responsible for the death of his son who was a recidivist and alcoholic was sentenced to 4 years in prison. “He’s only been 18 months. The families take life without remission,” concludes Coralie Pailhès.
