Mother, son lose case over Bowdler homicide

A mother and son found guilty of the wilful homicide of 18-year-old Rachel Bowdler nine years ago have lost a constitutional claim that their right to a fair hearing was violated.

Concetta Decelis and her son Jason were found guilty of the crime by a jury in 2006 after Ms Bowdler collapsed from a drug overdose at Mrs Decelis’s flat in St Paul’s Bay five years earlier.

Neither Mrs Decelis nor her son had sought medical assistance on that ill-fated day in 2001. Instead they had ignored repeated advice from a certain David Gatt to take Ms Bowdler to hospital or to a clinic.

After Ms Bowdler died, the mother and son disposed of her corpse by leaving her in a field in Mġarr.

Mrs Decelis was sentenced to 15 years in jail while her son was jailed for 25 years.

The family appealed the judgement but it was confirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2008.

In their constitutional application before the First Hall of the Civil Court, the Decelis family said the Court of Criminal Appeal had based its judgment on the fact that they had failed to apply the requisite “duty of care”.

This duty was an English common law principle and had no basis in Maltese law, they argued. They claimed that their fundamental human right to a fair hearing had been violated as they had been found guilty of a crime that did not exist at law. In handing down judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Ray Pace said he did not agree with the Decelis family as the Maltese criminal code defined the crime of voluntary homicide as including the intention to put the life of a third party in manifest danger which results in death.

The failure of Mrs and Mr Decelis to seek medical assistance for Ms Bowdler clearly constituted the intention to put her life in manifest danger.

The reference made by the Court of Criminal Appeal to the “duty of care” was to underline the fact that although Mrs and Mr Decelis had assumed responsibility for the consequences to Ms Bowdler, their action or inaction was a determining factor in her survival or death.

Mr Justice Pace therefore dismissed their application.