The investigating judge has appointed a judicial expert to the case and has asked him to issue a report to clarify whether the maintenance of the walkway was “negligent.” The instructor wants to know the state of the infrastructure and know “if there were visible signs of deterioration” and “the foreseeable date of the last maintenance carried out” to determine whether or not it was sufficient.
The head of position number 1 of the Investigation Section of the Court of Instance of Santander has adopted this decision within the framework of a battery of procedures that she has agreed to promote the investigation, as reported this Friday by the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) of Cantabria.
In addition to the expert report, the judge has asked the 112 Emergency Service and the Santander Local Police for the protocol of action they have to respond to the notices. Along these lines, the instructor wants to know if the “incidents reported by citizens” and “risks in public infrastructures” were received or “followed up.” She is also interested in knowing if there were complaints about the state of conservation of the walkway. Likewise, it has asked them to send to the court “any internal instructions, circulars or complementary manuals that establish performance criteria for service operators.”
Another of the agreed procedures concerns the Santander City Council. The judge has asked him to provide “a copy of the minutes of the last five years of the Northwest District Council, to which the Cueto and Monte neighborhood belongs.” It has also ordered the third group of the Specialized and Violent Crime Unit (UDEV) of the Judicial Police to collect information related to possible complaints “in public or official registries”, such as the citizen service office of the town hall or the Local Police, as well as in “platforms for citizen incidents, local neighborhood associations, media and social networks.”
three families
This same Friday, the Cantabrian TSJ reported that “three families have already appeared” in this case, after the judge offered all the relatives of the deceased and the only survivor of the accident to participate in the judicial procedure. It also appears as a person. That day the two cyclists who warned that the walkway had collapsed will have to appear before the court – but as witnesses; the neighbor who notified 112 24 hours before the accident that it could be dangerous; as well as the two National Police agents who carried out the visual inspection after the accident.
For her part, the judge has accepted that the Santander City Council appears as “possible civil liability.” It is worth remembering that Mayor Gema Igual (PP) assumed before the media that the council did not know how to correctly manage the notice from the neighbor who warned of the poor state of the infrastructure. The councilor assured that “the response chain” of the agent who received the call “did not work as it should.” As announced, the City Council was going to open an “informative and sanctioning file” against the Local Police agent.
