Contractors fined €4,000 for causing death at site

Two contractors who caused the death of an 84-year-old woman when they forged ahead with excavation too close to her house were yesterday fined €4,000 each. The tragic structural failure of the house in Cathedral Street, Sliema, occurred on April 12, 2000, as a digger ate away at the foundation bedrock, leaving the stone flush with one of its boundary walls. The sub-contractor, Raymond Calleja, 45, said he knew he had to keep two-and-half feet from the boundary wall, but building contractor Carmel Micallef, 46, threatened that he would not get paid if he did not excavate the stone. Both men were charged with causing the death of Rita Vella and seriously injuring her son, Joseph, who was 45 at the time. Architect Phillip Azzopardi was also charged but exonerated after Magistrate Miriam Hayman noted he had told the two men to keep their distance but they ignored him. Mrs Vella and her brother Anthony Mifsud, 77, were in the kitchen while her son was asleep upstairs. His aunt Carmen Pecorella then woke up, worried about fissures and cracks in the house. They both left and told the digger operator to stop and look at the cracks. He suggested calling the architect and leaving the...