Three Gozo Ministry officials were on Thursday charged with the involuntary homicide of Carmel Attard, who died after the ceiling of a public toilet collapsed on him while he was working in March 2021.
Arraigned in front of Magistrate Leonard Caruana at the Gozo court, Joseph Cutajar, 44, Vicky Xuereb, 44, and Joseph Xuereb, 55, pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them.
Prosecuting inspector Bernard Charles Spiteri told the court that on March 18, 2021, police were informed of an incident at Dwejra in which the ceiling of a public bathroom had collapsed and a worker had been trapped beneath.
The victim, who was identified as Carmel Attard, also known as Charlie, was certified dead on site.
Following this, inquiring magistrate Brigitte Sultana led an inquiry into the incident, resulting in charges being filed.
The police, he said, had also consulted with the Occupational Health and Safety Authority which is also prosecuting the case. All three defendants, he added, had been interviewed during the course of the investigation and voluntarily signed the statements they had given to the police.
As well as involuntary homicide, the three officials were charged with failing to satisfy workplace health and safety rules, failing to supervise and adequately evaluate the workplace, employing five or more people and failing to keep a safety evaluation of the site, failing to ensure that employees were wearing safety gear and failing to safeguard employees during demolition work.
A police officer who responded to the incident on the day testified that he had spoken to the other workers present on the job site, who told him they were employed under the community worker scheme, which falls under the responsibility of the Gozo Ministry.
Loud noise heard
It transpired that the day before the incident occurred, the workers had demolished the roof of a room adjacent to the bathroom and were in the process of removing the debris from that area when a very loud noise was heard.
One worker told the officer that he had previously been doing the same work as Attard but had stepped away and walked towards the chapel to take a phone call. He was not facing the direction of the building when the incident occurred and was not facing the building when the roof collapsed.
Another man told him that Attard had been working on the roof of the structure on some wooden planks and that these had given way when the ceiling collapsed.
The police officer also said that he had located the victim’s car on the site and found the keys in the ignition. He said that he had locked the vehicle and subsequently gave the keys to Attard’s wife.
The court also heard from a representative of the Malta Business Registry, who presented a list of directors of the company that employed Attard and the workmen as well as a Jobsplus official who presented a copy of the employment history of the three defendants, Attard, and the other workers on site at Dwejra that day.
A representative of the Planning Authority also presented a history of planning applications that had been approved on the site.
The case will continue in January.
Lawyers Michael Schiriha and Natalino Caruana de Brincat represented Joseph Cutajar and Vicky Xuereb, while lawyer Michael Spiteri appeared for Joseph Xuereb.