ROME HIT-AND-RUN TRIAL:A HIT-AND-RUN driver was yesterday given a seven-year prison sentence for the manslaughter of two Irish women, 28-year-old Mary Collins and 27-year-old Elizabeth Gubbins, who were killed in Rome on St Patrick's Day in 2008.
Substantial damages were also awarded to both families.
Given that Friedrich Vernarelli (34) had no criminal record, the verdict was an unusually tough one for an Italian court.
Judge Anna Maria Pazienza does not appear to have allowed for any “mitigating circumstances”.
The sentence awards a total of almost €1 million in damages to the families, with €130,000 being awarded to the three surviving parents, Tom Gubbins and Kevin and Patricia Collins, and €70,000 being awarded to each of seven siblings plus €80,000 in legal costs.
Yesterday’s verdict comes at the end of a 20-month trial which opened in September 2008.
The two Irish women were killed at about 3am at a pedestrian crossing on the Lungotevere Road, beside the Tiber and opposite Castel Sant’Angelo, as they made their way back towards their hotel.
They were struck on the crossing by Vernarelli’s Mercedes car which, according to witnesses, briefly stopped but then drove off at speed.
Stopped by police shortly afterwards, when he crashed at high speed into a traffic sign and some parked cars 1km farther up river, Vernarelli was initially put under house arrest, only to be subsequently imprisoned in mid-April 2008.
He was released from prison six months later.
During the trial, it emerged that a breathalyser test had revealed Vernarelli’s alcohol level to be 4½ times above the Italian legal limit.
On what was an intense final day, both prosecution and defence lawyers inevitably concentrated nearly all their attention on addressing the single most controversial question posed by this trial, namely who was driving the car which killed the two women.
The public prosecutor, Andrea Mosca, repeated the state’s conviction that the heavily intoxicated Vernarelli had been driving at the time of the crash.
In more than three hours of summing-up, lawyers for Vernarelli repeated a line of defence that they have pursued right from the beginning of this trial, claiming that he was so extremely drunk that he could not possibly have driven the car. This, they claimed, was in fact driven by one of two Hungarian friends Vernarelli had met earlier that night.
Neither of the two “Hungarians” could be traced to give evidence.
Both the public prosecutor and lawyers for the Collins and Gubbins families also pointed out that, in initial statements, first to police on the morning of the incident and then to his own lawyer two days after the incident, Vernarelli had admitted that he had been at the wheel at the time of the crash.
Furthermore, both the public prosecutor and the lawyers for the Irish families made much play of the fact that three witnesses had all identified Vernarelli standing close to the Mercedes car at the scene of the accident.
Even though Vernarelli’s defence lawyers attempted to exploit some inconsistencies in these three key testimonies, Judge Pazienza was clearly convinced that Vernarelli had indeed been at the wheel that night.
Following yesterday’s verdict, all parties now await the judge’s motivazioni or judicial reasoning, probably released within 45 days.
At that point, lawyers for Vernarelli will almost certainly appeal the verdict.
In the meantime, Vernarelli remains at liberty, although under judicial surveillance.
Legal experts last night calculated that if, at the end of the appeals process, yesterday’s verdict is confirmed, Vernarelli could serve four to five years in prison.
Emotional scenes in courtroom after judge announces verdict
REACTION:THERE WERE emotional scenes in courtroom 13 of the Città Guidizaria in Rome yesterday evening when judge Anna Maria Pazienza read out her verdict.
Members of both the Collins and Gubbins families, who have been present for almost every hearing of the trial, burst into tears and hugged one another as their lawyers, Ginevra Banjo and Paolo Carugo, explained the judge’s ruling.
In a corner of the small courtroom, Patricia Collins, mother of Mary, wept uncontrollably.
Ms Collins has been a constant presence at this trial, often weeping her way through the hearings but determined, as she put it, to see the business through for the sake of her late daughter.
Minutes after the verdict, all three parents made emotional statements on the courthouse steps.
Speaking on behalf of his family, a tearful Kevin Collins said: “In January 1977, we were married in St Patrick’s Church in Rome. Three years later our first child, Mary Clare, was born. On March 18th, 2008, she was taken from us on the streets of Rome. Her broken body was left on the Lungotevere Altoviti for over six hours. She was due to return home to us that morning.
“She was a beautiful and gentle daughter and sister. We loved her deeply and the pain of our loss is sometimes quite unbearable. She should have had the best years of her life ahead of her.”
The statement expressed the family’s upset at insinuations by the Vernarelli defence that both girls had been drinking and had crossed with the pedestrian traffic light showing red.
“We abhor the suggestions that she [Mary] had too much to drink on that night. The toxicology report produced in court conclusively proved otherwise.
“During their first evening in Rome, Mary and her three friends realised how dangerous the city was for pedestrians. We know that they promised each other to always obey the pedestrian lights. We reject the attempts which have been made to imply that they crossed against a red pedestrian light.
“Mary and her friend Elizabeth were mowed down by a car which was in the care and responsibility of somebody who drank excessively on that evening. He will have to live with consequences. We will have to live without Mary.”