Four people involved in a pony racing accident that killed a man in 2013 have been cleared of involuntary homicide charges.
None of the four – the man racing the pony, the race organiser or two officials who rented out the premises – could be blamed for the incident that left Michael Zammit brain dead and a child injured, a court ruled.
Rather, it was Zammit and the child who had put themselves in danger by sitting or standing in an area where they ought not to have been, a magistrate concluded.
The case dates back to May 2013, when a horse and pony racing event held at the Ħal Far drag racing track ended in tragedy.
Sandro Cutajar was racing a pony against another competitor when Cutajar’s pony veered to the side and crashed into plastic barriers. The impact split the sulky and threw Cutajar off the animal, which continued running and smashed into two spectators - Zammit and an 11-year-old child.
The girl suffered grievous injuries but recovered following surgery. The rider, Cutajar, was not seriously hurt.
Zammit was critically injured and never regained consciousness. He was eventually declared brain dead, with doctors attributing his death to a fractured skull and necrosis due to blunt trauma.
Police went on to press charges against four people involved in the incident: the rider, Cutajar; event organiser Pierre Cuschieri; and the president and secretary of the Malta Drag Racing Association, Paul Pace and Jason Camilleri respectively.
Testimony provided in court showed that all rules and regulations had been followed to organise the event. The event was covered by the appropriate permits and insurance policy, the police confirmed under oath, and the organiser had also arranged for additional police officers, an ambulance and medical crew to be on standby.
While the injured girl had described the plastic barriers as being of the white and red variety seen at roadworks sites and said they were not filled with water, Camilleri and Cuschieri testified that the barriers were designed to withstand impacts from racing cars and were not intended to be filled with water.
A court also heard from eyewitnesses that the accident victim, Zammit, was seated on the barriers at the time of the incident while the child was walking along the racetrack, and not among spectators.
A representative of Sport Malta, the entity which made the Ħal Far track available to the drag racing association, said that they did not believe the association was breaking any rules in renting the venue out for horse racing purposes.
Having heard the evidence, magistrate Joe Mifsud ruled that there was no evidence that any of the four people in the dock had shown any form of reckless disregard for people’s safety during the event and were therefore extraneous to what had happened.
He declared all four not guilty.
Lawyers Franco Debono, Mark Fenech Vella, Mark Mifsud Cutajar and Josephine Farrugia Mifsud appeared for the defendants.