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Karl Schembri
A Transport Authority driving examiner implicated in the cash for licences scandal and who had run over the elderly father of Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri in a drunken state last April would have remained unprosecuted by the police had MaltaToday not revealed the accident, according to an inquiry report.
The conclusions of the inquiry into the Transport Authority’s bribery scandal reveal that “had not the article on the traffic accident of 29 April 2006 in which Mr Nicolai Magrin was involved appeared in the MaltaToday of 18 June 2006, it might well have transpired that this traffic accident would have gone unprosecuted not withstanding that the Police had all the evidence to base a strong charge against him.”
Listing the sequence of events since the accident on 29 April, the board of inquiry not only confirmed MaltaToday’s story revealing the authority’s failure to take disciplinary measures against Magrin, but also shows that police filed their charges against him only a day after MaltaToday made the story public – more than a month and a half since the accident. The case is due to be heard in October.
While defending the delay in filing charges on the grounds that contraventions would have been barred by prescription only after three months, police yesterday said the case was being reviewed internally in the light of the inquiry report.
Magrin, who is one of the five examiners arrested and charged by the police in connection with the bribery scandal, was driving a van owned by Godwin’s Garage with three times the amount of alcohol permitted for drivers when he hit the elderly Cuschieri.
According to the records filed at the Sliema police station, Magrin was “visibly drunk” and “could not stand on his feet” when he hit the man on that night.
Yet neither the police nor the authority took action against the driving examiner.
The inquiry reveals that PS 1268 Ivan Caruana, who was on duty at the Sliema police station at the time of the accident, failed to file charges against Magrin.
On Sunday 18 June, the day MaltaToday published the story, an Assistant Commissioner had phoned Superintendent Vella Gregory and informed him about the story.
“Supt. Vella Gregory told the Assistant Commissioner that as far as he was aware the police had issued charges against Magrin,” the inquiry report says, but upon checking the charge book, he “discovered to his surprise that no charges had been issued against Magrin up to that date.”
The inquiry report goes on to add: “Thus over a month and a half had passed from the accident and no positive police action had been taken against Mr Magrin.”
PS Caruana was then asked to make a written statement about why he had taken no action against Magrin, citing Magrin’s reluctance to produce insurance certificates as a major obstacle given that the van was leased, even though he had the power to force Magrin to produce them.
Questioned again on 22 June by Supt. Vella Gregory, PS Caruana decided not to answer questions put to him.
The inquiry board interviewed him “to try to elicit from him the reasons why he failed to take immediate action against Mr Magrin as he could have done after the lapse of the 48 hours during which time Mr Magrin was required by law to produce the insurance document. Furthermore, if Mr Magrin failed to produce the insurance by the date and time indicated, he could have been additionally charged with having failed to produce the insurance within the period prescribed by law.”
PS Caruana reiterated to the inquiry board that he did not file the charges because of the insurance, adding that he was also away from work on sick leave for about a week and that he had other work to do in other police stations.
The police said yesterday that PS Caruana had technically until 29 July of this year to file charges, although they still said they were reviewing the case.
“We have requested a copy of the report by the board of investigation appointed by the minister for urban development and roads for further investigation from our end,” a police statement said. “Such copy was received on the 17 July, and case is being reviewed from our end.”
So what… no big deal!
The inquiry board also investigated MaltaToday’s report stating that the authority had also failed in taking disciplinary measures against Magrin but just transferred him internally as security officer – a stand justified by Minister Jesmond Mugliett on the grounds that no police charges ware formally issued.
On 4 May, Major Mark Sammut Tagliaferro who was in charge of the testing department, sent an email to authority chief executive Gianfranco Selvaggi stating that Magrin had admitted to him that on 29 April “he was again involved in a traffic accident… He went on to add ‘so what… no big deal!’
On that same day, Selvaggi asked the assistant human resources manager to indicate to what post Magrin could be moved that was equivalent to his salary and skills. But on the following day, Major Sammut Tagliaferro writes a new email to the chief executive complaining about the threats he was receiving from Magrin’s father, Alfred Magrin, who is Management Enforcement Officer with the same authority.
Among the threats reported from Alfred Magrin, Maj. Sammut Tagliaferro lists that “if they don’t stop picking on his son Nicolai ‘it would be the worse for them’”.
The son himself had told the other driving examiners “on more than one occasion that if he ‘sinks’, the others (including Sammut Tagliaferro) will sink with him”.
Major Sammut Tagliaferro requested that Magrin be moved from the unit as “it has been shown conclusively that Nicolai Magrin is completely unfit and unsuitable to act as a driving examiner”.
Selvaggi had then directed Magrin to report at the ADT offices instead of at the testing department.
The inquiry board says Selvaggi’s correspondence left little doubt as to the reasons for the transfer, although surprisingly the chief executive told the board that he was not aware of the accident.
“I would have taken steps for sure, even of sacking him, because it’s the worst thing you can do, if you are examining,” Mr Selvaggi said. “You have a title of an examiner and you run down somebody. I wasn’t aware.”
Selvaggi’s statement does not stand when confronted with the minister’s statement to MaltaToday that Magrin was transferred because of the accident.
“The authority could not take disciplinary measures if the police did not present any charges against him,” Mugliett had said. “So we removed him from the post of examiner, as he was clearly not the right man for the job, and gave him a transfer.”
About the father’s pressure to influence the authority’s decisions, the inquiry board said it was undecided, “especially with regard to the decision as to whether to take more serious disciplinary action against him as a result of the traffic accident that occurred”.
In his interview with MaltaToday, Mugliett had denied that Magrin’s father, as a high-level authority manager, influenced the decision to keep his son instead of suspending him.
“His father was informed by the chief executive after the decision to transfer him was taken,” the minister said.
But the inquiry, citing a “self-explanatory and self-evident assertion made by one of these very same high officials”, reported that “people were not happy to report him (Nicolai Magrin) as they were afraid that his father, Alfred, a manager at ADT, would somehow pay them back.”
The board said it was bad corporate governance for a father and a son to be employed in the same organisation, and the uncertainty about whether incorrect conduct had occurred or not is “in itself damaging to the ethos and morale of any organisation”.
Slamming the authority’s management, the board said it couldn’t “but note with regret that the management seems to have failed to take the decisive appropriate action”.
“Despite the fact that the allegation that a driving examiner had run down a pedestrian while driving under the influence of alcohol was known to the top management, not enough was done to address the situation. … Apart from being criminal, the behaviour of the driving examiner concerned, if proven, was antithetical to the post he occupied at ADT,” the inquiry report said. “In fact, the very job of driving examiners centres on ensuring that only those persons who are fit to drive properly and safely, do so.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/06/18/top_story.html
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