A man who had been condemned to one year in jail for having grievously injured a jockey and killed his horse in an accident at the old Marsa racetrack has had his punishment converted to a suspended jail term and a lower fine on appeal.

Andrew Stephen Roberts had been convicted by the Magistrates Court of having, on October 10, 2008, through imprudence or carelessness, grievously injured Anthony Busuttil, killed his horse and damaged his sulky.

Mr Roberts pleaded on appeal that he was fully observing the rules of the road when driving on the Marsa race track and the accident occurred solely as a result of the non-observance of regulations by Mr Busuttil. He also argued that the punishment was out of proportion to the circumstances of the case.

He said he was driving on the left hand side of the track whilst the victim, unlike all the other
horses on the track at the time of the accident, was racing his horse-driven sulky on the right hand side of the track.

It was a known fact that while the old race track was very often frequented by the horse-riding community it was also common to find people walking on the race track, and the track was also frequently used by vehicles that  needed to enter or exit the Malta Golf Club’s service facilities on a daily basis.

The court observed that according to the evidence, Mr Roberts worked at the Malta Golf Club and that at the time the only way for staff and delivery persons to reach the premises was by driving along the race track.

The victim, Anthony Busuttil, had alleged that the accident occurred on his side of the track, that
there were two vehicles racing adjacent to each other and that appellant crashed into him.

However, the evidence showed that the accident occurred on Mr Roberts’ side of the track, not on Busuttil’s side.  This meant that the sulky partially invaded the left-hand side of the track when
manoeuvring a bend in the track.

However, it also resulted that a lot of dust had been kicked up on the track by another staff member, who had been driving ahead.  Roberts had testified that as he approached the bend, he decided to slow down and that was when the accident happened, with the horse coming out of nowhere.

He had also said: "You didn’t even see him coming through the dust. Nothing at all.”

In such circumstances, the court said, it was obvious that Mr Roberts should have allowed the dust to settle before proceeding. By driving on he was putting himself in a self-inflicted incapacity.

The Court therefore confirmed Mr Roberts' conviction but altered the one year jail term to a jail term of four months suspended to a year. A fine of €3,350 imposed by the first court was reduced to €1,500.