Outcry over teacher’s five-year sentence finds MP’s support

Citizens and an MP have taken to Facebook calling for justice for a 34-year-old schoolteacher who was jailed for five years this week for running over two elderly people in Attard, causing the death of one of them and grievously injuring the other.

Dorianne Camilleri was jailed after being found guilty of the involuntary homicide of Alfred Zahra, 64 in May 2011 when she was driving along Mdina Road near Rabat on her way home from a day’s teaching at a school in Sta Venera, as well as of grievously injuring his sister, Carmela Zahra, 75 years old at the time.

Camilleri had told Magistrate Doreen Clarke that she had been driving at 50 km/h behind another car in traffic when her windscreen was suddenly shattered by an impact with a person. After pulling over to the side of the road she had screamed at passersby, asking for help, she said. The accident occurred a short distance away from a pelican crossing, the court was told.

Social media was alive with declarations of sympathy and solidarity with the teacher. By all accounts, Camilleri was unlucky to have also injured the man’s sister and thus triggering the higher prison sentence, which sparked public outcry and plans for petitions. The legislation applying in this case was amended in 2009.

In reactions on Facebook, Nationalist MP Antoine Borg declared his intention to challenge the minimum five-year sentence for such cases and to ensure that “common sense prevails”.

Antoine Borg's Facebook post

Lawyer Robert Musumeci immediately told Borg that – in this case at least – he had his full backing.

From the witness stand, Camilleri had said that she had not expected anyone to attempt to cross the road from there. “You do not expect to find pedestrians crossing… that they will emerge from behind a centre strip, from behind a van and you suddenly find them in front of you.”

The defence had based its case around the contention that the Zahras had been negligent in how they crossed the road, leading to the accused to find herself in an instant, unexpected, unpredictable and inevitable emergency.

But the court, in view of CCTV footage showing the speed of traffic in the area and noting the damage to the car as well as her description of how the accident took place, held that she had “certainly” been travelling faster that the 50km/h she had claimed, although she should have still been able to spot the pedestrians.

All the evidence pointed to the impact with the victims, who smashed the windscreen and ended up on the boot of the car, having been more substantial than what would be expected of a collision at that speed, or of a car that had been stationary moments earlier – as she had also claimed.

The court said the evidence indicated that the elderly couple had crossed from the pavement and not from the centre strip, as had been claimed and, as she had said that she would never have expected someone to try and cross from there, deduced that the woman had not been keeping a proper lookout.

After examining case law on the issues of dangerous driving, negligence, the duties of pedestrians and those of drivers, as well as bearing in mind the inconsistencies in the accused’s testimony, the Court said that the only possible penalty it could hand down was a custodial sentence.

The Court, however also took into consideration Camilleri’s clean criminal record and the psychological suffering she was enduring as a result of the accident and imposed the minimum sentence for involuntary homicide in which another person was grievously injured – five years. She was also ordered to pay €2,400 in Court expenses.

Sentence triggers comparisons with other cases

In a near identical case to Camilleri’s which was decided in January 2016, Edward Bonnici from Naxxar had received a suspended sentence and a fine for killing two elderly pedestrians whilst driving at 137 km/h. The court in that case, whilst observing the serious nature of the crime, had said that it was bound to impose the penalties imposed by the law at the time of the incident.

In 2010, road menace Maximilian Ciantar had received a 16 month sentence after a drink driving incident in which he had run over and grievously injured two young twin sisters, who had been crossing the road on a zebra crossing in Attard.

Maximilian Pace, who received a two-year jail-term and had his licence suspended for 10 years after running over twin girls in Attard in 2001, was released after serving 16 months of his sentence and had his driving ban reduced to 16 months

Last October a man from Paola had been handed an 18-month sentence, suspended for four years for fatally injuring an elderly female pedestrian who crossed the road from behind a bus in 2010.

In March last year, a bus driver who ran a red light and permanently disfigured a young woman in Mosta got off with a fine and a licence suspension.

Anthony Taliana stands accused of the involuntary homicide of cyclist Clifford Micallef on the Coast Road in July 2009 but has claimed he suffered a breach of his human rights during his interrogation by the police

The issue of pedestrian responsibility was also raised last October, with a court apportioning some blame on pedestrians who fail to use designated crossing points.

In that case, Magistrate Joe Mifsud had called for sanctions on careless pedestrians. “While we have sanctions, and rightly so, for drivers who breach traffic regulations, the time has come for pedestrians who disregard the dangers and create unnecessary emergencies, by crossing on red lights or from unsafe crossing points, to answer for their actions.”