Lawyer demands retrial of 'dangerous' bus driver after witness admits to lying under oath

A lawyer has asked a court to retry a bus driver, previously cleared of dangerous driving and critically injuring a woman, after a defence witness admitted to lying under oath.

Ukranian woman Inna Said was left suffering from epilepsy after she was hit by a bus in St Paul’s Bay in 2008. Said had sustained head injuries spent over two weeks in hospital as a result of the incident.

The bus driver, 42 year-old Massimo Bonello was subsequently cleared of negligent and dangerous driving and of causing serious injury to the woman, instead being fined a paltry €150 for driving with an expired licence.

But Said’s husband Publius last year handed police a 15-page document in which he made clear that he suspected that several witnesses may have misled the court in order to secure the driver's acquittal, insisting that this had led the court to decide that his wife was at fault.

Astonishingly, the man's suspicions were proven to be correct this morning when one witness, Maria Louise Pearson, confessed to having given false testimony.

Lawyer Anthony Stellini, representing Said as parte civile, alleged that the woman had been under pressure from “various people” to lie under oath, describing the case as a "miscarriage of justice."

He appealed to Magistrate Josette Demicoli to start criminal proceedings against Bonello anew, on the grounds that the courts had been misled by false testimony.

For her perjury, the court handed Pearson a two-year jail term suspended for four years and placed under a general interdiction for ten years.

Inspector Kylie Borg prosecuted. Lawyer Carina Najiah appeared for the accused.