A young boy owes his life to his mother who pushed him out of the way seconds before she was hit by a car as they were both crossing a Nicosia road.
Her actions are recounted in a court decision which convicted the driver of the car and jailed him for nine months. The driver appealed, but in its decision made public yesterday the Appeals Court rejected his appeal and upheld the guilty verdict.
The 39 year old woman and her six and a half year old son were crossing Tseriou street in 2015 on their way to a children’s play area.
As they were crossing, she was hit by a car. She sustained critical head injuries and died a few hours later.
The driver was found guilty and jailed for nine months. He appealed his sentence with his defence lawyer telling the appeal court that the accident could not have been avoided.
The court had initially found that the accident occurred when the woman and her son were already three metres on the road. She was hit by the car’s right hand bumper. But seconds before that, she managed to push her son who fell into the middle of the road away from the car.
The court heard that the driver had not slowed down or made any attempt to avoid hitting the woman.
The Appeals Court agreed with the district court that the defendant’s failure to act to avoid contact with the victim constituted a dangerous situation, even though the victim had contributed to this situation.
It said said that it could not agree with the defence’s argument that the accident could have been avoided.
The driver was driving at a very slow speed and given that contact of his car with the victim was with the right bumper, we cannot conclude that the accident was unavoidable, it said and ratified the guilty verdict.
