Mouscron child deaths: 17-year-old says “I was driving hit-and-run car”
Belgium’s Francophone broadcaster RTBF is reporting that the driver who caused the accident in Mouscron (Hainault) on Saturday was a boy of seventeen years of age. The broadcaster cites sources close to the investigation that say that the boy admitted driving the car when the accident occurred.
A car carrying a driver and his two stepchildren crashed into a lamppost while trying to overtake a vehicle following a row with the occupants of the vehicle at a car park. The driver of the second car reportedly lurched to the left during the manoeuvre causing the accident.
Two children aged 4 and 8 were killed. The driver was seriously injured.
Two people have now been arrested after police were able to track down the vehicle’s owner: the 25-year-old owner of the car and a minor, who came forward to police in the French city of Tourcoing following the first arrest.
In France driving licences can be issued to 17-year-olds under certain conditions. Prosecutors are now checking the statements. An investigation is under way into malicious obstruction of traffic and involuntary manslaughter and fleeing the scene of the accident.
