Three facing charges over Frenchwoman hit by pole

The owner of a Gżira construction site, the building contractor and a worker will next week be charged with criminal negligence and injuring a Frenchwoman after a metal pole fell on her head as she walked past the site in the summer. The charges have already been issued against the three men and the case will start next week, a spokesman for the police said. The incident happened on June 4 when a 22-year-old Frenchwoman, who was in Malta on a three-month internship, was walking along The Strand in Gżira. As she passed by a three-storey apartment block under construction, on the corner of The Strand and Sir Patrick Stuart Street, she was hit by a two-metre-long pole that fell from a height of one storey. The woman, who has since left Malta, suffered two sunken fractures to her skull. Speaking to The Times shortly after the accident the woman’s sister had said she witnessed the scene unfold: “I saw the metal pole falling on her head. I saw my sister fall to the ground. I saw the pipe hit the pavement.” She had recalled seeing a work-man on the building site, panicking and crying in disbelief. He went rushing down the stairs in horror, she had recounted. After that, she was totally...