The owner and administrators of a furniture company were today summoned to face criminal charges over the death of a teenager two years ago following an accident at his place of work.

John Agius, 53, director of Construct Furniture, his daughter Amanda Cefai, 31, as factory administrator, and her husband, James Cefai, 38, a foreman, all from Luqa, appeared before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit to face charges over the involuntary homicide of Matthew Bartolo, 17 from Kirkop.

The tragedy occurred on June 4, 2015 at around 12.20pm when the 17-year old employee suffered fatal injuries while operating a woodworking machine used to manufacture doors at the company’s factory at Ħal Farrug, limits of Luqa.

At the start of the hearing, under the watchful gaze of the victim's parents, the defence team objected to the hearing of witnesses summoned purposely by the prosecution, saying they were still not armed with a copy of the inquiry report.

Lawyer Edward Gatt, one of the defence counsellors, argued that the Attorney General had not yet handed the report to the defence lawyers, although a copy had allegedly been leaked to the media.

Rather than wasting precious time, the court declared that it would hear the testimony of the prosecuting inspector and put off the hearing of other civilian witnesses to the next sitting.

Inspector Mercieca from the CID department testified that in the course of his investigations, he had spoken to Peter Blundell, who reportedly should have been operating the controls of the machine at the time of the fatality. There were great discrepancies in the versions given by Mr Blundell to the inquiring magistrate and later to Inspector Mercieca, the court was told.

In reply to a question put by Dr Gatt, Inspector Mercieca declared that the evidence did not warrant criminal action against Mr Blundell, and said it was not clear whether he had been responsible for overseeing the operation of the machinery which caused the fatal accident.

Lawyers Edward Gatt, Pio Valletta, Veronique Dalli and John Refalo were defence counsel. Lawyer Jason Azzopardi appeared parte civile for the victim's family.

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