The family of a 22-year-old woman killed in a traffic accident have decried a court sentence that let the drunk driver responsible for her death off without spending any time in prison.

“He got let off with just a slap on the wrist. He got on with his life but my sister is gone forever,” said a bitter Tamara Tabone, whose younger sister Jessica died in a collision in Gozo in April 2015.

“Justice has not been served at all with us and less so with my sister,” she said of the suspended jail term handed down to the driver. “Jessica lost her life because of the irresponsible actions of this man.”

Her sister had been a passenger in a car driven by Clint Spiteri, early on April 19, 2015, when the car in which she was a passenger was involved in a head-on collision with another car driven by Gabriel Tabone, a 20-year-old police officer from Għasri. She died on impact.

Following a three-year court case, Mr Tabone last month admitted all the charges brought against him including dangerous and negligent driving, veering on the wrong side of the road, driving under the influence of alcohol and committing a crime he was duty-bound to prevent.

Magistrate Joe Mifsud accepted the suggestion of plea bargaining between defence, prosecution and the Attorney General’s office. As a result, Mr Tabone was given a two-year jail term suspended for four years, a €3,000 fine and a one-year suspension of his licence.

Jessica’s brother Luke said that despite having a lawyer attend all sittings, the family was not represented during plea bargaining and neither was it informed about the guilty plea.

“Our lawyer received an e-mail from the AG’s office with the agreed punishment two days before the final sitting. We obviously objected but it was all in vain,” he said.

The family has been told that the AG is not willing to appeal the case since the punishment falls within the parameters of the law.

The Tabone family.

He’s still going about his life as if nothing happened but Jessica is gone and her life cannot go on

But for Tamara and Jessica’s brother Luke, this level of punishment is just “unacceptable”. 

“I’m disappointed. Even if you kill a dog you get sent to jail, and rightly so,” Luke told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“But what should happen if you kill a human? I think he got away with it. He’s still going about his life as if nothing happened but Jessica is gone and her life cannot go on.”

A fair punishment, he said, would have been time in prison “because he has to pay for what he’s done”.

“Having him in jail will not bring our Jessica back but she’s gone because of him so that has to be reflected in the punishment. We do not want any family to go through what we’ve been through in these four-and-a-half years. It’s been horrible,” his sister Tamara added.

She believes the law should be changed to create a stronger deterrent against drink-driving.

“His life went on while Jessica’s did not,” Tamara said as she opened a memory box of her sister’s belongings, including photographs, her mobile phone and her favourite rosary bead.

Jessica was fondly called Mouse by the family.

Also upset with the sentence, her mother Philippa questioned whether justice had been done in a case where someone had been killed.

“I understand that Gabriel has to live with what he’s done for the rest of his life,” she told this newspaper from overseas.

“His parents are lucky that they get to see him, talk to him, give him a hug...I don’t have these luxuries anymore. I would give anything to be able to tell Mouse that I love her, give her a hug and just be able to hold her and talk to her. I will never see my Mouse again, hear her voice, her laughter, her calling me Momzy.

“I always thought that she was the luckiest out of my children and that she would achieve a lot in life and go far, do lots of things. All that was cut short by a young man who went out drinking and decided to drive.

“I try to live my life to the full as she would have wanted me to. I cope with the whole situation by saying that I have joined the club of parents who have lost a child. It hasn’t got any easier. The tears still come. I miss her tremendously,” Jessica’s mother said.

Sisters Tamara and Jessica Tabone (right).

Recalling how the news was broken to her, Tamara said her partner had received a call from a friend saying they should head to hospital. 

Even if you kill a dog you get sent to jail, and rightly so

“They told us something had happened to Mouse. We went there and they told us that they had tried their best. I went numb. I didn’t even know how to deal with it.

“I think there should be a grief counsellor at hospital for relatives who are given this kind of news,” she added.

Jessica, she said, was a joyful, happy-go-lucky girl who made her presence heard and felt. She had spent four years studying in the UK and had moved back to Malta a short while before the accident.

“It was just meant to be. She was not going out that night but her friends convinced her to join them. She usually went in her car but that day she got a lift.

“The only consolation we have is that it was fast and she did not suffer.”