A 69-year-old man has been ordered to fork out almost €90,000 in compensation to the heirs of a man he killed following an argument over the pruning of a tree in a Marsalforn car park one afternoon in June 2013.

Gozitan pensioner Gerald Galea, from Żebbuġ, has already served his 15-month jail term for murdering John Spiteri, 54, after the court found his crime had been excusable since there had been an element of provocation. He had been cleared of attempting to murder the victim’s son. 

The incident had taken place on June 19, 2013, when Mr Galea had angrily told the father and son to stop pruning a protected tamarisk tree at a car park in Qbajjar and insisted he would not tolerate the two setting up a kiosk there.

The three got into an altercation and at one point, Mr Galea got into his Daihatsu Terios and drove at full speed at the father and son. 

While the son managed to get out of the way in time, his father was not as lucky and was crushed by the car. He died in hospital some five hours later. The court had heard that the car had “shuddered”, like it was going over a sleeping policeman.

Medical experts testified that Mr Spiteri died of injuries caused by being run over by a car, driven by Mr Galea who also suffered grievous injuries from at least four punches, which fractured his eye socket and caused severe swelling to his face. He had been arraigned sporting facial injuries. 

The car park where the incident took placeThe car park where the incident took place

The court heard how Mr Galea had lived in the States for more than 40 years and had only been back in Gozo for three months when the incident took place. 

Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, presiding over the First Hall of the Civil Court noted that although Mr Galea must have felt threatened by the violent action of the father and son, who had punched him and even grabbed him by the throat, he did not shy away from aggression which was “disproportionate”.

He, therefore, found him civilly liable for all the damages suffered by the victim’s wife, Rose and three children, Jonathan, Charles and Matthew. 

In calculating the damages, the court heard how Mr Spiteri was a construction worker and used to run the kiosk on a part-time basis. He therefore ordered Mr Galea to pay a total of €88,806 including €3,500 to cover the funeral expenses and €1,200 to cover psychiatric sessions which Mr Spiteri’s wife and son Matthew had to attend for professional help to get over the trauma. 

Lawyer Vince Galea appeared for the Spiteri family. 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.