A 56-year-old man who allegedly hit a young man on the head with a baton in what, by the victim's account, was a bad case of road rage, is facing a potential 30 years in prison if found guilty by jurors today or tomorrow.
Paul Hili, an aircraft technician from St Julians, yesterday started facing a trial by jury on attempted murder charges before Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono.
Mr Hili stands accused of trying to kill Victor Testa on February 20, 2003.
Bearing a scar snaking around the top and side of his head as a result of the incident, Mr Testa said that on that fateful day he had just finished attending private lessons in accounts in Swieqi and was on his way home in Sliema. He recalled he was driving up St Francis Street and saw a car coming from the opposite direction. Mr Testa said he "politely informed the driver of the other car that he was driving down the wrong way. But the man simply switched off his car and swore at me.
"He told me to reverse. Initially I told him to apologise before I would reverse. He did not apologise but I reversed just the same and stopped at a point so that he could pass through Norfolk Street. But he insisted I should reverse all the way. I refused.
"I saw him tear off the seatbelt and I ran out behind my car as I was afraid of him. He got out and started swearing at me. I replied in the same language. He seemed to be holding something in his right hand and kept telling me to come near him. I was afraid he would hit my father's car, which I had left in the middle of the road with the engine still running.
"Then I remembered my aunt lived close by and ran down to seek help. I knocked on her door but no one opened. I then saw a pot in a ceramic container and decided to take the pot hoping to scare him with it. But as I approached him, he hit me on the left side of my head and I felt my right hand trembling out of control.
"As I was falling he hit me at least twice again. It felt like being hit by a hammer," Mr Testa said.
The victim said he had no idea what happened to the pot he was holding after he was hit.
"I felt unbearable pain in my head and it felt as if I had a hole," he said. He recalled some people tried to help him and he heard someone say his head was "open like a strawberry".
The victim said he recalled his young brother arriving on the scene and as he did not want him or his parents to worry, he told him he was going to play football as planned.
"My brother then came to hospital with me in the ambulance. I felt as if I had an octopus running through my body. I then had a fit and felt my hand going uncontrollably behind my back and I lost consciousness. I told my brother to tell my mother I loved her."
Mr Testa said he was in the ITU for sometime and later had to spend three months at home. In September of last year he underwent a second operation as he had a hole in his skull which surgeons had to cover. The victim said he could not drive for a year, he cannot stay in the sun, still suffers from headaches, has a percentage of disability, and suffered from a numbness in his arm so that he had to undergo lengthy therapy sessions to be able to write again.
Neurosurgeon Antoine Zrinzo, a consultant at St Luke's Hospital, said Mr Testa suffered a 15 per cent permanent disability. He recalled he had examined the victim on his admission to hospital.
He said the patient had a depressed fracture in his skull and this was putting pressure on the brain. He then performed surgery on Mr Testa, who was drifting in and out of consciousness. The patient had a lack of sensitivity in two fingers in his left hand because of post-traumatic epilepsy. In the CT scan, doctors saw that Mr Testa's brain had been substantially damaged.
Mr Zrinzo said the patient started suffering short-term memory loss as well as other symptoms as a result of the trauma to his brain.
Several other witnesses who were on the scene took the witness stand. Albert Aquilina said he restrained the accused and stopped him from continuing to hit Mr Testa by taking the baton from his hands. An Italian whose testimony was read out to the jurors said he saw the accused hitting Mr Testa, who dropped the ceramic pot when he was hit. Another witness said she saw the victim throw the pot at the accused.
Taking the witness stand late in the evening, after the prosecution had declared it had no more witnesses, Mr Hili said he had hit Mr Testa in self-defence.
Mr Hili admitted he was driving down wrong way, adding he was on an urgent errand to go to his elderly mother's house to fix a switch for her.
"All I asked was that he move his car, to reverse just a little bit more so that both of us could pass. Then he stopped the car and came out first. So I got out as I was afraid he'd hit me or hit my car which was brand new.
"He was young and fit, darting about and I could hardly move because of problems with my knees. I saw him grabbing a pot and coming at me so I went back to my car, thrust my hand through the passenger window and grabbed the first thing I found," Mr Hili said.
He said the victim threw the pot at him from a distance of about three metres and he swung the baton, possibly smashing the pot and hitting him, but could not know where the baton had struck.
At times panting heavily, Mr Hili said it would have been far better if he had been hit by the victim "as I would not be here today".
"Things happened so fast that I did not know what to do," he said prompting the judge to remark that once a fight started, there was no way of knowing how it would end. Mr Hili said he could not believe that a man full of youth and vigour would attack him.
He denied having hit the victim repeatedly. He said he did not even know whether he had hit him or not. Neither did he know what happened to him after that. He said he wanted to leave after people held him back as he thought these were the victim's friends and they would beat him up. So he reversed part of the way and went down Norfolk Street, parked in the main road and went to his mother's house. Shortly after he was arrested.
He denied he kept a baton in his car just in case he ever needed to defend himself. Asked by the court to explain how the baton had grooves that served as a perfect hand grip, the accused said he had wanted to make an alteration on a sofa he had at home and tried some router bits on it to see how they worked, denying he had turned the leg of a table into a baton.
The case continues this morning.
Lawyers John Attard Montalto and Ian Farrugia are appearing for the accused while Gianella Caruana Curran is appearing for the victim. Mark Said is prosecuting.