The grieving parents of a teenager killed in a 2005 accident on the Mrieħel bypass oppose giving the courts discretion on jail terms, a proposal made in the outcry over the teacher’s five-year imprisonment. Marlene and David Housely tell Kurt Sansone why.
Marlene Housley believes the minimum five-year jail term for those guilty of a double road fatality or injury should not be removed.
Angered by the proposed change in the law, which would allow magistrates discretion to award the penalty they deem fit, Ms Housley says the move is disrespectful to victims and their relatives.
“It would be a big mistake,” she says while seated at the kitchen table in her apartment.
On the microwave is a small shrine in remembrance of her dead daughter, Emma. Three teddy bears, left by Emma’s friends near the roadside plaque dedicated to her, sit next to framed photos recalling the smiling face of a 17-year-old teenager.
Emma and her friend Graziella Fenech, 13, were mowed down by an over-speeding motorist on the Mrieħel bypass nearly 12 years ago. The two were on the way home after visiting a sick friend in the centre of Qormi.
The wound of losing a daughter has never healed, Ms Housley and her husband, David, explain. “It is wrong to say the wound is re-opened every time we hear of somebody killed in a road accident, because the pain has never gone away. We just manage to work around it.”
The motorist who killed Ms Housley’s daughter was found guilty of involuntary homicide of the two girls in 2009 but walked away from the courts with a suspended sentence and a €4,000 fine. The magistrate’s ruling left the Housleys bewildered and angered.
“That is how the lives of two teenagers were valued by the magistrate,” Ms Housley tells me as she clutches a sheet of paper upon which she has jotted down some notes for our meeting.
The Criminal Code was changed in 2010 to include the minimum five-year jail term if the person found guilty of involuntary homicide has also injured or killed another person.
I also went on Xarabank and cried when my daughter died, but she did not come back
This is the law that saw Dorianne Camilleri, a 34-year-old teacher, being sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the magistrate’s court a fortnight ago. She ran down two elderly siblings in Attard in 2011. The man died two days later in hospital, while his sister was seriously injured in the accident.
In the wake of the court’s decision, Nationalist MP Antoine Borg called for the law to change and in an emotional speech spoke about what he had achieved in life during the same time Ms Camilleri was passing through her court ordeal. He asked for people to be given a second chance.
Justice Minister Owen Bonnici agreed the law was draconian and proposed changes to allow magistrates more discretion.
Both MPs were reflecting the public outcry at what many believe was a disproportionate sentence handed down to Ms Camilleri.
But Ms Housely is unfazed by the outpouring of support for the teacher. In the rush to placate voters, she argues, politicians forgot all about the victims of road accidents and their grieving relatives.
“Would Minister Bonnici have described the law as draconian had the victims been his parents or his daughter? Mr Borg said that in six years, he had got married, had two children, built a profession and entered politics. I am happy for him, but my daughter Emma wanted to follow a career in the police force. I would have loved to help her choose her wedding dress; I will never hold her children in my arms,” she says, her eyes welling up with tears.
These are the words of a still-grieving mother who believes that justice was not served when her daughter’s killer got off with a suspended sentence and who feels a second injustice is about to be perpetrated against voiceless victims.
The Mrieħel bypass, where Emma Marie Housley, 17, was killed in 2005.The last image she has of her daughter is of a body lying in the middle of the road covered in a white sheet, with just a lock of silky blonde hair showing.
It is an image that will haunt her for the rest of her life, Ms Housely admits as she excuses herself for breaking down.
Mr Housely says he would have loved to walk his daughter down the aisle. “It will never be, and I know nothing will bring her back, but the law has to value human life, because it seems like animals are more valuable in the eyes of legislators.”
The couple fear that giving court magistrates wider discretion will deliver more suspended sentences, sending out the message that killing someone in a road accident is not a big deal.
Reacting to my suggestion that the legal change being proposed is a sign of a compassionate society willing to give people another chance at life, Ms Housely shakes her head. She asks who is showing compassion to people like her.
“What about the dead elderly man and his sister, who remains scarred till this very day? Ms Camilleri will be out after spending five years in prison; my daughter and others like her will never be back.”
She reflects on the moving interview Ms Camilleri gave to TVM programme Xarabank, in which she expressed regret at what happened while calling on any witnesses to come forward and shed new light on the incident.
“I also went on Xarabank and cried when my daughter died, but she did not come back,” Ms Housely says, adding she felt sorry for the magistrate in Ms Camilleri’s case for having to face public pressure for doing her job.
But sending Ms Camilleri to jail will not bring Emma back either, I argue.
Mr Housely nods his head in agreement but insists laws that serve as a deterrent are one way of ensuring that his daughter did not die in vain. The courts need guidelines, he adds.
“What is happening is not fair, because it shows that politicians and people do not care about those who die in these accidents,” he says.
It is impossible to understand the pain people like the Housleys go through. To them, losing their daughter was like losing part of the family jigsaw. They have had to learn to cope with their loss while being strong for each other, their two sons and their grandchildren.
Ms Housely has a welcoming and bubbly character; her husband is the more reserved type. They harbour no hate for the man who ran down their daughter. “If I see him on the road needing his last breath, I will give it to him, because I do not want his family to pass through the same pain,” Ms Housley tells me.
What she would have liked to see is justice being served in a way that reflected the gravity of the accident. It is the same yearning she has for justice to be delivered in other cases that have left victims like her daughter.
It seems that in the news fog that has enveloped the Camilleri case, the voices of relatives who have lost loved ones on the road has been ignored.
kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com