Taxi driver who mowed down pedestrian at 110km per hour gets suspended sentence

A life was left shattered by the dangerous driving of 27-year-old Renald Aquilina, who left the courtroom with a three-year driving ban and suspended licence after running over a 50-year-old woman at 110km per hour.

Aquilina, from Gżira, caused lifechanging injuries to his victim, a bank manager now suffering from short-term memory loss, unable to read, eat, or go to the toilet unassisted.

She was unable to testify about the 2016 incident, with her husband telling the court how they were picking up the pieces of a life shattered by Aquilina’s reckless driving, with the victim now allowed to retain her bank job in a less taxing role but not as manager.

An eyewitness described how Aquilina had been driving at considerable speed when he hit the woman at a pedestrian crossing. His victim had been catapulted into the air, across the central strip, before hitting the ground on the other side of the Gżira seafront.

Aquilina, working at the time as a taxi driver, was driving his car on Triq ix-Xatt at 8:15pm on 16 September 2016 when he mowed down the pedestrian on the zebra crossing.

Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace convicted Aquilina of causing grievous injuries to the victim, with dangerous and reckless driving, at 110km/hr in a built-up area, but handed down a suspended sentence.

She said his age - the driver was 20 at the time - had been a mitigating factor. The man was given a one-year prison sentence suspended for four years, his driving licence was suspended for three years, and he was given a €1,683 fine.

Inspector Lara Butters prosecuted. Charles Mercieca was defence counsel.