An €8,000 fine meted out to two contractors whose negligence led to a woman being crushed to death in her Sliema home 12 years ago has been slammed as “a sick joke” by her children.
“My mother was killed and my brother was left in hospital and homeless. Now, after 12 long years in court, we’re told they’ll each be given a €4,000 fine. Is life that cheap? It’s unbelievable... I’ve lost all confidence in the law courts,” Paul Vella said.
Rita Vella died on April 12, 2000 when improper excavation works next door to her house in Cathedral Street led to a wall and two ceilings of her house collapsing. The courts found contractors Carmel Micallef and Raymond Calleja had been wilfully negligent.
Mrs Vella’s son, Joe, escaped with 32 stitches to his head, multiple bruises and broken bones.
The duration of the judicial process and the judgement have disturbed Mrs Vella’s children.
“Even talking about it leaves me breathless. It’s an absolute farce,” her son Joe said.
He was a few steps behind his mother on the fateful day. “The last word she ever said was my name... The memory leaves me very tense and this injustice (the sentence) makes it even worse,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
His brother, Paul, lashed out at judicial inefficiencies. “We’ve been awaiting sentencing for the past three-and-a-half years. We had 27 hearings between 2009 and 2010 – 10 were put off, the others lasted all of five minutes. There was never any pressure to end the case.”
The week leading up to Thursday’s sentencing was the cherry on the cake, Mr Vella explained.
Relatives were told judge-ment would be delivered on Tuesday morning.
Having taken time off work, they made their way to court at 9 a.m. only to be informed the sentence “was being typed”.
According to Mr Vella, “at about 1.15 p.m., the magistrate told us that sentencing had been put off to Friday. I then made arrangements to get the day off work, only to be told on Wednesday that it would actually take place on Thursday morning”.
When the sentence finally did arrive, it left the family dismayed, he said.
“These two contractors were fined €4,000 each for having killed my mother. That very same day, in the same court building, a couple was fined €1,000 for animal cruelty. I’m not saying that’s right but is that justice?”
The tragedy also left Joe Vella homeless and with nothing to his name.
“I had to lend him a suit and shoes to wear to our mother’s funeral. Everything he ever had was destroyed,” his brother recalled.
A civil suit the family has brought against the two contractors and the architect responsible has yet to be decided but Mr Vella is hopeful that things will be moving now that a new judge has been nominated to hear the case.
Mr Vella now finds it hard to shake off his disillusion.
“Unfortunately, we trusted so-called professionals. Architects, contractors, the law courts, politicians; they’ve all let us down. It’s enough to make you want to take justice into your own hands,” he sighed.
“It is my to mother’s memory that we owe this fight... €8,000 is how much the dear magistrate valued my mother’s life. A mother to seven, grandmother to 13 and a great-grandmother to nine.”