French rail firm fined after train runs over cat
published : 5 Jul 2023 at 09:13
writer: Gary Boyle
ORIGINAL SOURCE/WRITER: AFP
A French court on Tuesday fined France’s national rail operator after a departing train ran over a cat hiding on its tracks.
The death in January at the Montparnasse station of Neko — which means “cat” in Japanese — provoked outrage.
Passengers identified in court documents as Georgia and her 15-year-old daughter Melaina said their pet escaped from its travel bag and disappeared under a high-speed train as it prepared to leave Paris for Bordeaux, in southwestern France, with 800 passengers on board.
After 20 minutes of trying to persuade staff to rescue it, the train departed, killing the cat.
“We saw him sliced in half,” Melaina said.
Train company SNCF offered the cat’s owners a free ticket to Bordeaux.
But animal rights body the Brigitte Bardot Foundation filed a complaint for “serious abuse and cruelty leading to the death of an animal”.
A Paris court fined SNCF €1,000 for “negligence”, ruling the pet’s killing had been caused “involuntarily”.
The travel agency branch of SNCF was ordered to pay another €1,000 in damages to each of the pet’s two owners.
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Vocabulary
- abuse (noun): cruel, violent or unfair treatment, especially of someone who does not have the power to prevent it - การข่มเหง, การปฏิบัติไม่ดีต่อ
- cruelty: behaviour that deliberately causes pain to other people or animals - อย่างโหดเหี้ยม
- damages: money that a court awards to a person who sued another person for causing injury to them -
- depart: to leave - ออกจาก
- disappear: to move something or someone somewhere where they can no longer be seen - หายไป, สาบสูญ, สูญหาย
- escape (verb): to get away from a place; to leave a place where you are in danger - หนี
- fine: to be required to pay an amount of money because you have broken the law - ปรับเป็นเงิน
- involuntarily: not done by choice; done unwillingly - โดยไม่ได้ตั้งใจ,อย่างไม่รู้ตัว,โดยอัตโนมัติ
- negligence: when you do not give enough care or attention to someone or something - ความประมาท, ความไม่เอาใจใส่
- persuade: to make someone agree to do something by giving them reasons why they should - โน้มน้าวใจ เกลี้ยกล่อม
- right: a moral or legal claim to have or get something or to behave in a particular way - สิทธิ
- slice: to cut something easily with or as if with a sharp blade - แล่นผ่า, ตัดผ่าน
