In April 2020, young man Matteo Grima was out jogging when he was seriously injured after being hit by a car. He suffered serious head injuries, and fell into 2-week coma, before making an inspirational recovery.

Last Monday, Raymond Camilleri – the driver who was behind the wheel of the vehicle which Grima – was acquitted of all charges after the Court concluded that the charges were time-barred.

Matteo Grima, who is now 22 years old, publicly shared his frustration after the judgment. Expressing his disappointment, he described what happened to him as a new level of shame.

“This is justice…a failed and false system where people can do whatever they please,” Grima wrote.

“To drop a criminal case simply because over two years have passed since the incident is the biggest farce I have ever heard,” he added, “and what blame do I have that the incompetent Maltese court summoned the accused just last year and not earlier?”

The young man was 18 years old at the time he escaped death, as he described to TVM News earlier this January. During this interview, Grima openly discussed the struggles he faced following his life-changing accident, recounting that in spite of his serious injuries, “the mental aspects were far greater than the physical ones”.

Camilleri’s acquittal came after it emerged that he had been notified to appear in Court on July 13, 2022 – over two years after the accident occurred. The accident took place at Dingli Street, Mtarfa.

Grima’s father also took his frustration online, calling the court shameful as Camilleri was “acquitted due to an administrative error”. Calling the judicial system shameful, he questioned why the time-barring process does not start once the process verbal has been completed and forwarded to police, rather than from the time of the incident took place.

While lambasting the judicial system, he said that the current system is only making life more difficult for victims.

Grima pledged to remain resilient in the face of the judicial system’s dereliction, saying: “Like I remained resilient over these last three years, I will remain to stay strong and fight for justice, maybe this country can stop being so mediocre”.

Despite passing through this traumatic accident, Grima has continued to pursue his studies and his love for football. He is pursuing a career in architecture and is also a football coach within Balzan FC’s youth nursery; he is adamant that this life-changing accident does not act as a barrier to achieve what he wishes to achieve in his life.