Police constable acquitted of having seriously injured pedestrian

Police constable Matthew Azzopardi, 42, was on Thursday cleared of having hit pedestrian Carmel Bajada with his motorcycle, causing him serious injury.

Azzopardi had been brought before magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit charged with having, through recklessness, lack of competency in his profession, or lack of adherence to the rules, involuntarily caused serious injury to Bajada. He was also charged with committing a crime he was duty-bound to prevent.

The court heard how Azzopardi was, on 2 September 2014, in traffic on his police motorcycle in Triq il-Parrocca, Naxxar, and had in an attempt to alleviate the traffic jam, put his beacon light on and proceeded slowly towards the cars.

A few metres ahead, Bonello had emerged from in between cars, resulting in a collision between Azzopardi’s motorcycle and Bonello.

Witness testimony showed that Bonello did not remember seeing the motorcycle’s light.

It also resulted that there was a zebra crossing a few metres away from were Bonello had crossed, but he had instead chosen to very negligently cross from in between two vehicles.

The accused could not have imagined that someone would cross from that point, given the presence of a zebra crossing close by.

It was proven in court that the accused’s motorcycle had been moving very slowly, so much that the impact had not been a big one.

It was furthermore not proven that the accused had been driving on the wrong side of the road.

The court found that the cause of the accident was completely Bonello's fault, who had created for the accused an instantaneous emergency which caused the constable to undergo an evasive manoeuvre to prevent hitting the pedestrian.

The court absolved Azzopardi of all charges. Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi appeared for the defence, while lawyer Vince Galea appeared in parte civile for the victim.