The trial of the hospital and staff members at the centre of France’s most serious incident involving radiotherapy error opened on 24 September and is likely to run till the end of October.

Two radiotherapists, a radiophysicist, the Jean Monnet Hospital in Épinal (in the Vosges), and four health officials are facing charges in a criminal court in Paris of unintentional homicide and injuries and failure to assist people in danger.

The judges will try to establish responsibility for two separate incidents at the hospital that have led to at least seven deaths and affected 448 patients between 2001 and 2006.

Investigations have unearthed at least two errors: mistakes …