The father of a French teenager who died tragically while on holiday in Malta in 2011 has expressed relief at justice being served for his son’s death while also sharing the frustration of waiting for years for proceedings to conclude.

Stephane Michel spoke to Times of Malta after he and his family were awarded more than €1.1 million in damages after a court found a construction company liable for the youth’s death.

Quentin Michel and a group of school friends had rented a holiday villa in Swieqi in 2011 to throw one last hurrah before they separately embarked on their university studies.

The Swieqi holiday villa where the accident took place. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

On his first night in Malta, while posing for a photograph pretending to scale a wall, the structure close to the villa’s pool area collapsed on top of Quentin, crushing him.

In 2019, the criminal court found James Mifsud and Gordon Farrugia, the directors of the construction company hired to build the wall in question, guilty of the teen’s involuntary homicide and sentenced them each to a two-year jail term suspended for four years.

There is no dulling the sting, even though we’ve been awarded financial compensation, the fact remains that Quentin is not here anymore- Stephane Michel

The court had also called for better regulation of the construction industry.

Delivering her judgment in the case for damages on Friday, Madam Justice Miriam Hayman came to similar conclusions, once again finding the contractors responsible for Quentin’s death and rubbishing arguments that the victim had some contributory negligence in the incident.

The judge concluded that it was not reasonable to believe the teen should have known the wall would collapse at the slightest instance of pressure, particularly as investigations subsequently revealed that the wall had not been anchored to anything. 

'Justice has been done' 

“We are feeling positive justice has been done and it is more clear than ever who was responsible for what happened,” Stephane Michel said. “The accident happened almost 13 years ago and we have had to wait all of this time, even as the other side tried to slow down the procedure.”

But, Stephane added, if Malta can take something away from this case that improves the regulatory framework surrounding the building sector, something positive would have at least come out of this dark incident.

“If our case can help Malta as a country have more clear regulation in its construction industry, at least Quentin would not have died for nothing,” he said. “But there is no dulling the sting, even though we’ve been awarded financial compensation, the fact remains that Quentin is not here anymore. I hope that people read this and come to their own conclusions.”

Lawyer Michael Zammit Maempel added that one of the persistent issues is that industries such as construction are not required to have insurance, which means that, while the family has a judgment on paper, there is no guarantee they will be able to get that money.

Additionally, the lawyer said that if deaths such as Quentin’s or similar ones, like Jean Paul Sofia’s, continue to occur, legislators should take that as a cue to review the situation seriously.