Seabank architect and company directors guilty of involuntary homicide

An architect and two directors of a construction company have been handed a suspended sentence after a court found them guilty of causing the death of a Latvian worker who was crushed to death during refurbishment works at the Seabank Hotel in Ghadira Bay in 2012.

B&B Construction Limited directors Etienne and Angelus Bartolo and architect Pierre Farrugia had denied having, through their negligence, caused the death of Maksims Artamonovs, 27, who was crushed to death during works at the Mellieha hotel.

Artamonovs had been employed with the construction company which was contracted to work on a €20 million refurbishment project at the hotel. He had been dismantling scaffolding in the car park when two floors of the Seabank Hotel collapsed on him.

In her 74-page judgment on the matter, magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech observed that there had clearly been a lack of communication between the architect issuing the instructions and the contractors putting them into practice on the construction site.

The court observed that the parties were working in isolation from each other without ensuring the stability of the structure.

The architect issued his instructions and based his direction of the works on the basis of ‘assumptions and calculations’, said the Court. It was up to the contractors carrying out the works had to make sure that they were understanding and following those instructions correctly.

The court said that there was no doubt that the contractors’ and architect’s shortcomings had led to the death of the victim.

“It was their negligence which resulted in the totally defective construction of the structure” said the court. The magistrate observed that the consequences would have been far worse had the incident occurred when the hotel was in operation.

Whilst noting that recent amendments, to regulations safeguarding against damage to third party property, were a step in the right direction, the Court stated that there “was more to be done.”

The magistrate highlighted the urgent need of distinguishing the various roles and responsibilities of architects involved in large scale projects, in the light of the explosive growth of the building industry.

She added that there needed to be a distinction between the architect who signed the permit application and the one who was to bear responsibility for the execution of the construction project.

The Court emphasized that the authorities had to carry out all necessary checks to ensure that the persons carrying out the works, possessed the required competence, noting that “uncertainty breeds chaos.”

Having seen the evidence, the Court found the three accused guilty of involuntary homicide and condemned each to a 2-year jail term suspended for 4 years.

Justifying the suspension of the sentences, the court said that while the trio were responsible for “a series of wrong decisions,” they had not shown an “I-don’t-care or manifestly daring attitude” which would have merited an effective prison term.

Lawyers Pawlu and Alessandro Lia appeared for Angelus Bartolo and Etienne Bartolo. Lawyers Michael and Lucio Sciriha appeared for Pierre Farrugia.