I am sure most of us would agree that police officers, in the line of duty, should never be subjected to what police officer Simon Schembri had to deal with earlier this month. He and officers like him exchange, on a daily basis, the security and comfort of their own homes to keep us, our children – and our roads – safe.   

 There may be reasons why someone flees the scene of an accident. Perhaps it’s the inability to think rationally, or perhaps it’s moral failure: you think you can get away with it, avoid legal consequences and public shaming. But nothing can ever justify or mitigate the callous, cold-hearted act of knowingly leaving a person for dead at the roadside. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks with perhaps the added trauma of parental drug-addiction may explain your issues with authority, and even explain dangerous and illegal driving. But these things can never excuse leaving a victim to his fate.

This is a subject I have written about before, twice. Both articles – ‘Doing injustice to the nation’ and ‘Highs and lows of sentencing’ – were published, a few months apart, in 2011. This was the year Maximilian Ciantar unleashed his road rage on the nation and ran over two little girls with no apparent remorse. For years and years he squandered every second chance, breached bail conditions, routinely committed other offences, and even called himself unlucky. Some people make their own luck and create their own misery – and they need to learn that hard fact. 

 Hit-and-run incidents are not new. They occur all over, not only in wild and lawless countries. And that won’t change. But what has to change is the way our own society views these crimes and the way offenders are dealt with by the justice system. The value of life can’t be zealously defended (when, for example, we’re discussing abortion or embryo freezing) and then be taken lightly when dangerous driving causes either a fatality or a life-changing injury.

Dangerous under-age driving is bad enough. Such flagrant disregard for public safety and public authority is bloody-minded and insouciant. But to hit a human being, drag him a good distance, and then speed off, is a wholly different ballgame. In fact it’s a game-changer in which the victim’s life, and his family’s, are changed forever. And if the Ciantar ‘roadshow’ is anything to go by, a two-year prison stretch (which boils down to 18 months, or less) won’t guarantee the sort of repentance that sees him on the road to Damascus instead.  

I’m a great believer in community service over and above (not in lieu of) other sentences

When Rainer Mader, a German tourist visiting our islands, was killed outright in 2015, the 36-year-old hit-and-run driver was granted immediate bail. No objections were registered, not even by the prosecuting officer. I remember thinking at the time, ‘This would not be happening if the victim were a policeman (or a member of the judiciary.’) And now I’m proved right. Liam Debono has not been granted bail. A defence lawyer might argue, not unreasonably, that bail is not something to be withheld willy-nilly; but my guess is that we’d have had a national revolt on our hands if it had been granted, given Debono’s premeditation.

Comparisons, of course, are odious, and no two cases are the same. Mader lost his life in an act of involuntary homicide: Schembri, mercifully, did not succumb to alleged attempted murder. And yet, regardless of legal nicety and the presumption of innocence, I’d still argue that death caused by dangerous, negligent or ‘medically impaired’ driving should involve, at the very least, temporary incarceration. That’s showing decency and respect for the victim’s family. And police objection to bail should be expected as a matter of course and taken seriously.

It would certainly be interesting, even useful, to carry out a comparative study of hit-and-run incidents over the past 10 years. The reality will always be complex and impossible to pin down exactly; but I’m sure a pattern would still emerge, sufficient to assist profiling. I’d even hazard a guess that the majority of offenders are male, and below the age of 25. Also that alcohol and/or drugs are involved, either directly or indirectly.

I’m a great believer in community service over and above (not in lieu of) other sentences. And when it comes to tough-nut troublemakers, community service could go a long way to teach them valuable lessons in humility and respect for others.

The argument that prisons make bad people even worse is disingenuous and unconvincing. I know of prisoners who have successfully completed university degrees and have gone on to accomplish things they would not have done otherwise, left to their own devices in the big bad world.

Would it therefore make prisoners ‘worse’ if they were to pick up litter from our streets for – shall we say – four hours of the livelong day?

And wouldn’t those who’d offended behind the wheel of a car be especially suited to a morning’s street sweeping or school cleaning? Even more appropriate would be a spell of ‘retraining’ in road-manners out on the actual roads with traffic safety wardens.

 Simon Schembri’s suffering may prove redemptive for a police force so often on the receiving end of a bad rap. Yes I know, there are under-qualified police officers who abuse the power vested in them and those who fail to behave appropriately; but while these can be a source of grief for some hundreds of citizens, the Simons of this world vastly outnumber them.

He is all the men and women who do their jobs with pride, who patrol, day and night, the frontiers between law and lawlessness. Knocked down in the line of duty, Simon paid a high price for doing just that. But today he stands taller than ever.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com