Rachel Bowdler’s father, John, told a panel of jurors yesterday about what he described as his daughter’s miserable life. However, he said he was very proud of “his Rachel” who, he said, found it hard to get out of the mess she got herself into when she starting taking drugs.

Mr Bowdler was the prosecution’s last witness before it declared that it did not have any more evidence. He was testifying during the trial by jury of a man, a woman and their son who are charged with the murder of 18-year-old Rachel Bowdler, who they dumped in a field in Mgarr after she had taken an overdose of heroin and died in their sitting room.

Carmel Decelis, 57, his estranged wife Concetta, also aged 57, and their son Jason, 29, are charged with the murder of Miss Bowdler on 13 May 2001 after, it is claimed, they did not call for help as the girl fought for her life for around 12 hours in Mrs Decelis’ flat in St Paul’s Bay. In the bill of indictment, the Attorney General is claiming that they moved Miss Bowdler’s body after she had died in the flat, drove to the limits of Mgarr and dumped her body in a field there. The girl’s body was discovered by a farmer.

Mr Bowdler explained that when Rachel was just over three years old, he was transferred to work in Egypt. Some four weeks after their arrival, a burglar tried to enter their villa and his wife was brutally murdered with a hammer when she resisted him. “The bedroom was covered in blood and when Rachel came home from school she found her mother lying in a pool of blood. That was Rachel’s first miserable experience,” he said.

He came back to Malta with Rachel, he said, and later married again. Years into this marriage, the relationship between Rachel and her step-mother deteriorated and she was being bullied by her. “She had a pretty miserable time in her childhood. In 1999, we separated and when I returned home, I found my children were gone and I had no access to them at all. Our life as a family came to an end. That was when I realised there was something wrong with Rachel, in the sense that she had a drug problem. I signed her into Mount Carmel to try to help her kick the habit. She fought very hard to get out of the terrible mess she had got in and she succeeded in improving her quality of life,” he said.

Mr Bowdler said that he and Rachel moved to Gozo. She left the community of drug abusers in Malta and found a boyfriend who was off drugs and cared for her. “She started to study again and was due to take exams in the month that she died. Everybody loved her and everybody, including me, was proud of her. Her boyfriend, Michael, was on his way to university and died in a traffic accident in Cirkewwa just 28 days before she died. She asked me: ‘Daddy, what do I have to do in this world to be happy?’” said Mr Bowdler.

He said he had sent her to England to his parents, who loved her very much, and he hoped that this time in the UK would help her think about her future. He said that two weeks later she came back and they spoke for the last time two days before she died because he was working in Ragusa in Italy at the time. “I heard from the police that Rachel had been found dead and I came to Malta as soon as I could. I am doing my best to get on with my life without Rachel,” he said.

Earlier during yesterday’s sitting, forensic expert Mario Scerri testified that medico-legal examinations of the body revealed that Miss Bowdler had died from pulmonary failure as a result of a drug overdose.

Dr Scerri said tests conducted on the body showed that the estimated time of death was 6am or some time later on Sunday, 13 May 2001, the day the body was discovered.

He said Miss Bowdler had fresh bruises on her arms and knees and added that she had fresh puncture marks on her right arm and the front of her left hand. He also pointed out that Miss Bowdler was wearing a pair of trousers back to front.

Dr Scerri said it was evident that the body had been transported to the place where she was found but said he could not establish precisely whether Miss Bowdler had been dead or still alive but unconscious when she was taken to the field.

Pathologist Brigette Ellul also testified at yesterday’s sitting. She said Miss Bowdler had been taking drugs since she was 15 years old and that an autopsy carried out on Ms Bowdler’s body revealed that she had an excessive amount of liquid in her lungs, which is indicative of heroin use.

Prosecuting officer Anthony Barbara then read out the testimony of Hayet Attard and her brother Adel Hamdi who said they had seen Miss Bowdler entering Mrs Decelis’ block of flats at around 6.30pm on 12 May 2001. Mrs Attard said she heard Jason Decelis and his mother Connie Decelis say: “What are we going to do?” and later on heard Jason Decelis say: “I think she’s died”. The witness said Mrs Decelis was constantly telling her son to calm down.

Mr Hamdi said that on Sunday morning, he left for work at 7.30am and when he was outside he heard two people saying: “Hold her properly because she is going to fall”. He said he saw them carrying the woman who looked unconscious and placed her in a car, which had all four doors open.

Another witness was Peter Paul Galea, who was with Miss Bowdler on the Friday night. He said he had met Rachel and they became friends. He said they spent some time talking and she told him stories about her past. She had told him that when she was four years old, she had found her mother dead. She also told him that she started taking drugs when she was young, at the tender age of 12 or 13. In order to help her with her problem, her father had decided to take her to live in Gozo. There she had met a man and fallen in love with him, but he had died in a traffic accident.

He explained that on the Friday evening before she died, they had gone to a party and then went back to his flat. He said she could not sleep and decided to go for a walk. Ms Bowdler did not return that night and in the morning she returned to the flat and slept. When she woke up she looked tired and weak and said she needed to throw up. At around midday, he said, he took her to Bugibba Square and that was the last time he had seen her.

The trial continues today.