A 49-year-old man from Tunisia has been sentenced to two years imprisonment after a court held him responsible for causing an accident which left a woman brain damaged 16 years ago.

On July 24, 2000, Faical Mahouachi had been behind the wheel of a vehicle belonging to the parents of his friend Maria Sharon Pace, driving from Qormi towards Luqa, when the car crashed into a gatepost on the right hand side of the road.

The accused, together with Ismael Habesh, currently stands charged in a separate case with the 2005 murder of transvestite Simon Grech.

At the time of the accident, Ms Pace was a passenger as she had just been administered methadone at the detox centre and was feeling dizzy. According to her testimony, the accused had also been administered methadone. However, he testified he had taken the substitute drug to treat addiction some four hours earlier.

The incident caused the victim brain damage, affected her mobility by rendering her a wheelchair user and changed her personality. It also removed her chances of returning to work.

The accused's negligent driving was confirmed by the fact that even if the victim's testimony - that the accused crashed after swerving to avoid a car - was to be believed, the road was so wide that he could easily have done so without causing the extent of damage he did, the court noted.

The defence had argued that the victim had been aware that the accused had been under the influence of the drug and had tacitly accepted the risk.

However, Magistrate Marseann Farrugia rejected  this argument, citing the 2015 judgment by the First Hall of the Civil Court in Xerri vs Xuereb, which had established that the mere fact that the passenger had seen him consuming alcohol did not automatically imply that she was aware of his impaired abilities and the extent of which he was affected.

Ms Pace's car, which had been bought just two years before the accident, was labelled a total loss.

The absence of characteristic bruising patterns led the accused to also be found guilty of not wearing a seat belt whilst at the wheel. He was also found guilty of heroin possession since traces of the drug emerged from toxicological testing.

The court pointed out that Mr Mahouachi was a repeat offender several times over and had squandered the many opportunities handed to him by the courts to get his life on track. Conditional discharges, probation orders and a suspended sentence had all failed to impress upon the accused the need for change.

The court handed Mr Mahouachi two years imprisonment and confiscated his driving licence for one year after his release. He was also ordered to pay the costs of the case.