‘Praspar Biss’: The Insider Story Of Matthew Bartolo, Eight Years After The Horrific Accident That Claimed His Life

On 10th September, on the day that Matthew Bartolo would have turned 26 years old, a Facebook post published by his mother, Claudette, bears one, very striking line that encapsulates how pretty much every person who knew Matthew described him:

“HAPPY HEAVENLY 26 TH BIRTHDAY Matthew, you must be making them laugh so much up there, eh?”

For over three years, Claudette had been trying to find time to finish a song, ‘Sbatax’ (‘Seventeen’), which she had commissioned as a tribute to her late son.

Now, on what would have been Matthew’s 26th , she is forced to find solace in creative expression. With some help from her cousin Christian, she even managed to pull together a music video which she published on the same day, part of which was shot at the cemetery where a brief commemoration was held.

By all accounts, Matthew was revered by anyone who was lucky enough to cross his path. He was loved for his humour, his infectious energy, and a certain joie de vivre that always managed to leave a mark on everyone.

“Praspar biss,” Claudette says, a common Maltese phrase which literally translates to “just antics” and is often used to refer to someone who generally possesses a goofy character.

At the time of his death, Matthew was dating his very first girlfriend – Maria Micallef.

In an interview held last year, Micallef described him as a diehard romantic who would fuss over her over the slightest non-issue. On one occasion, she was running around the house, fell, and hit her head. When Matthew got to know about what had happened later in the day, “he was very worried”.

“I remember him panicking and telling me not to sleep because he feared something bad might happen because of how hard I hit my head. He was very caring like that,” she said.

When asked about what she liked about him and why she had decided to start dating him, she repeated what pretty much everyone else – friends, peers, fellow feast enthusiasts – had to say about him.

“He was always laughing – if you were sad around him, you’d end up laughing with him. Even when we had arguments, he would find a way to make it funny and I would always end up laughing with him and forgetting about everything,” she added.

Matthew had begun working with Construct Furniture to earn enough money to buy a car so he would be able to drive himself to MCAST every morning. The bus had proved to be unfeasible since he’d need to commute from Kirkop to Mosta, meaning he’d need to spend at least three hours on a bus on a daily basis.

His full-time employment with Construct Furniture was a conscious choice in that context: work full-time, save up enough money to buy a car, and then enrol in a videography course.

Eight years after Matthew died, his mother remains in perpetual mourning and with no closure whatsoever. Across multiple interviews held over the past year, her answer never varied:

“I’m sad everyday, but on days like Matthew’s birthday, I’ll be sadder. I’ll always think about what it would be like if he was still here, wondering what we’d have been doing today if he was still with us,” she says.

Her husband, Leonard, makes no bones about his disdain for the court system and how he genuinely believes that justice cannot be served “in this country”.

“In Malta, to get justice, you have to cause a scene – and even then, you might get what you are fighting for, it’s not guaranteed,” he adds, arguing that both parties were in power for a long enough time to take corrective action to prevent cases like Matthew’s from happening in the first place.

“When we had the Nationalist Party in government, the Labour Party used to talk so much about how corrupt the system was. Now that they’re in government, the Nationalist Party is telling them the same exact thing, but the government isn’t doing anything about it,” he concluded.

On what would have been Matthew’s 26th birthday, Claudette and Leonard were still waiting to be given a date for their next court hearing, one of hundreds they’ve had to attend over the last eight years.

It took three months just to get a date for the first hearing of the appeal they filed following the court’s decision to find David Blundell not guilty.

Blundell was the only other worker on the factory floor when the accident occurred, and was therefore accused of failing to uphold his duty to ensure the safety of a fellow worker. The director of the company, John Agius, along with his daughter Amanda Cefai (who ran the factory floor) and her husband James Cefai (who served as foreman), were charged with involuntary homicide.

Construct Furniture is a company that is known to be close to the government, raking in millions from direct orders. They had even managed to nab an ad cameo from disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat just six months after Matthew died in their factory.

The case against the directors of the company remains suspended until the outcome of the case against Blundell is determined. The case against Blundell, in turn, has been bogged down by delays, court reshuffles, recusals, and shoddy paperwork.

On 6 March of this year, Claudette and Leonard dutifully headed to court yet again. They have not missed a single hearing over the past eight years – at most, Leonard and Claudette wouldn’t always be able to go together, but one of them always would.

On that same morning, Kris Busietta, the family’s lawyer throughout most of this saga, perfectly captured the gist of how the family’s Kafka-esque tribulations in court have panned out throughout this period: “this case was born under the wrong star”.

As if on cue, that same hearing lasted only a few minutes and bore no fruit worth writing home about. Magistrate Leonard Caruana had to postpone the sitting because of a missing document that had not been handed over to him when he took
over the case.

In fact, after some tragicomic shuffling around, magistrate Leonard Caruana was the fifth magistrate overseeing this case: before him, the case was first heard by magistrate Astrid May Grima, magistrate Elaine Mercieca, magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace, and magistrate Doreen Clarke.

May Grima had almost concluded the proceedings related to the case against Blundell before a court reshuffle meant Mercieca was up next. Mercieca then decided to recuse herself from the case because she had previously worked in the office of the Attorney General and had prosecuted the directors of the company in a separate case.

Micallef Stafrace had also recused himself from the case because she was the legal aid lawyer on duty when Blundell was arrested and had provided legal advice before he released his statement to the police. When Clarke took over the case and was also close to finalising the case towards the end of 2022, another court reshuffle meant the file landed on Caruana’s desk, who eventually delivered the not guilty verdict that is currently being appealed.

Throughout all this, at no point in time has anyone managed to establish how Matthew had been fatally injured by one of the machines that he was operating with Blundell.

Caruana’s verdict did not go into the merits of why Blundell failed to hit the emergency stop button on time, so much so that another operator had to be called in to actually do so.

What the verdict did establish, however, is that “the shortcomings deduced on the accused’s part should, effectively, be directed instead towards the owners of the company” since they are the employer who is ultimately responsible for such matters.

After yet another three months of waiting, Claudette and Leonard finally got a date for the appeal – 27th September, 2023.

In an interview held on 1st September, Claudette had expressed some optimism about the fact that the case against Blundell seemed like it was finally going to be concluded.

“When our lawyer tells us that a date has been set for another hearing, I feel relieved. It makes me think that finally, something’s moving,” she’d said, a stark contrast with the incomparable disappointment she had experienced when Blundell was not found guilty in May.

When judgement day finally rolled around, it was a day early – there was a mix-up with the dates, which meant the hearing was held on 26th September instead of the original date.

Blundell was also not adequately notified of the reason why he was summoned to court. His lawyer stated that he only received summons but no explanation as to why he was asked to go to court after Caruana had found him not guilty.

In yet another instance of incompetence, this meant that the case would have to be deferred to 3rd October: this morning.

Overseen by Consuelo Scerri Herrera, this morning’s court appointment did not take long at all.

Blundell’s lawyer argued that the appeal, filed on 15th June, was filed a day after the deadline for the appeal expired.

The family’s lawyer, along with a lawyer from the Office of the Attorney General, rebutted that the appeal was in fact filed on time given that one of the days in between, Sette Giugno, was a public holiday.

Because of all this, the sentence was deferred again… this time to the morning of 23rd November.

When asked to describe what kind of justice they need to be served in order for them to find some measure of peace, both Claudette and Leonard made it clear that they know exactly what that ought to look like.

“Whoever was responsible for Matthew’s death needs to get what they deserve, and that includes both Blundell and the company’s directors, because they have their share of responsibility too,” Claudette said.

“They are in fact the biggest part of it all. They should get what they deserve, because this was our son, not theirs,” she added.

The past eight years have taken a very heavy toll on the Bartolo family.

And yet, moments of beauty and happiness could still be observed in the wake of the enormous void left behind in Matthew’s absence. While it is beyond clear that the Bartolo family’s pain is of a permanent nature, their ability to still find joy, even in the briefest moments, is testament to the sheer power of human resilience.

Even in the dreary, seemingly never-ending few minutes before a court hearing, Leonard’s almost legendary hatred for suits and ties never failed to amuse Claudette. She always had to fix him up, and he’d take it off the minute he walks out of court, every time.

One of the joyous occasions which Matthew did not get to see was his younger sister’s Holy Confirmation ceremony. In fact, his sister, Alayza, never got to get to know him at all, although Claudette says that she’s seen so many photos of him and heard so many things about him that it’s as if she knew him, regardless.

Yet again, Leonard’s total disavowal of anything remotely formal was evident, with Claudette fixing his tie over and over again throughout the ceremony.

When asked to think of the future ahead and what they think it will look like, the family is a mixed bag of emotions.

Both Claudette and Leonard are set on remaining at their post for as long as necessary – the loss of their eldest son has clearly galvanised them into action, and they are ill-disposed to seeking rest and tranquility when their wounds remain wide open.

But, amidst all the fury and desperation of a heartbroken family that just wants justice for their lost son, hope seems to have run dry.

During the last interview held before the publication of this story in the family’s cosy apartment in Kirkop, the topic of Jean-Paul Sofia’s case cropped up.

While the circumstances of their deaths are different, Matthew and Jean-Paul were two young men whose lives were snuffed out forever at their place of work, and the parallel was inevitable.

Referring to Isabelle Bonnici, Jean-Paul’s mother, and how she single-handedly manage to pressure a recalcitrant government into setting up a public inquiry, Claudette expressed sincere admiration for Isabelle.

“I think she did the right thing, but honestly, should anyone need to do all that to get justice? Is that right? Don’t get me wrong, I think what she did is great, and I had even reached out to her and expressed my admiration for her – but does it have to come to this?” she asked.

Do you think Matthew’s family will ever get the justice they so truly deserve?