A court has ordered a €143,000 payout for the heirs of an 18-year-old woman who lost her life in a traffic accident on the Coast Road in 2010. 

Yana Xerri was in a car driven by her boyfriend, Clint Xuereb, when he lost control and slammed into a wall and then plummeted a storey to the road below. 

Victim Yana Xerri

In January 2013, Mr Xuereb, 26, was fined €6,600 and banned from driving for three years when he was found guilty of causing her death through dangerous driving. The court found that Mr Xuereb was drunk and speeding. 

The accident happened on the Coast Road on November 27, 2010, at about 4.30am after the couple had spent a night out in Paceville. Mr Xuereb was driving towards St Paul’s Bay when he lost control of the car, which the court found was travelling at excessive speed.

He slammed on the brakes, hit a low wall and mowed down a signpost before the vehicle crashed on to the rocks below the road and flipped over.  

Ms Xerri died on the spot, as a result of severe head injuries she had sustained, but Mr Xuereb escaped with cuts and bruises even though he was thrown out of the car on impact as he was not wearing a seat belt. 

Mr Justice Anthony Ellul was ruling on a civil case for compensation filed by Ms Xerri's father, Carmel, and her three siblings against Mr Xuereb and Elmo Insurance. 

The judge heard court experts explain how they had found brake marks measuring 65 metres and that it was "incomprehensible" how Mr Xuereb was insisting he was driving at 70 kilometres an hour.

Mr Justice Ellul described the speed at which Mr Xuereb was driving his car as "wild" and added that the fine imposed by the Magistrates' Court was, in itself, proof of his responsibility in the accident. 

Although the police believe that Ms Xerri was not wearing a seat belt, medical court experts and pathologists who carried out an autopsy on her corpse testified that she had abrasions on her shoulder that were compatible with a seat belt. The fact that she had no bruising on her chest did not mean that she was not wearing a seat belt, they told the court. 

"This is another case where a young person lost her life due to someone's irresponsibility. Inexperience is not an excuse. Life goes on for the person who survives but the other person whose life is robbed would have suffered the consequences due to someone else's arrogance. The driver was lucky the first time round when he survived the accident and then lucky against when he was only fined €6,600. This is hardy a mitigating factor, so much so that years after the accident Clint Xuereb is trying to take people for a ride by insisting he is not responsible for the death," Mr Justice Ellul remarked. 

"We experience irresponsible driving on Malta's roads every day, by people who have no clue of what respect for others is all about. The punishments being meted out by the court is evidently not sending a strong enough message and the authorities are failing in the enforcement of traffic rules and regulations," the judge added. 

Mr Justice Ellul also criticised the defence arguments that Ms Xerri had also been responsibility for the accident when she decided to go home with Mr Xuereb even though she knew that he was drinking in bars and was under the influence. 

In calculating the compensation, Mr Justice Ellul noted how Ms Xerri was working as a waitress at the time of her untimely death. Based on a working life of 37 years, the judge fixed the amount of compensation at €142,790.