Paris--A French court on Tuesday handed down a three-year suspended prison sentence to the skipper of a Bateaux Mouches tourist boat that crashed into a smaller vessel on the River Seine in 2008, killing a man and boy.
The court also awarded 790,000 euros ($887,000) to the victims and their families and banned the vessel's skipper Florent Bonnin from having a boating licence for three years.
Bonnin's 60-metre (196-foot) long tourist vessel slammed into a smaller pleasure craft, sending it crashing into the pillar of a bridge over the Seine.
Prosecutors had charged Bonnin with manslaughter and unintentional injury in connection with the crash that happened within sight of the Notre Dame cathedral.
The smaller boat, which had 12 people aboard, sank almost immediately after the collision. A 45-year-old man at the helm and a six-year-old boy were trapped underwater and died.
The other 10 people on board -- five adults and five children, all of them French -- were plucked from the water immediately after the boat sank.
Victims of the crash and their families had sought more than 1.7 million euros from Bateaux-Mouches as well as European Armament and Charter (EAA), the company managing the boat crews.
The court on Tuesday ordered both companies as well as Bonnin to pay the 790,000 euros to the victims and their families.
Experts who testified in the case said the crash was at least partly due to the length of the Bateaux-Mouches boat, but also Bonnin's fatigue.
The skipper had worked 13 hours with one break, making the company's scheduling partly responsible for the crash, according to one expert heard by the court.
AFP
