Policeman appeals jail term

The police sergeant convicted last month of attacking a French woman outside the Bay Street complex in St Julians yesterday asked a court to revoke his jail sentence.

David Sant had been jailed for four months after he was found guilty of slightly injuring a French woman, 56-year-old Catherine Sophie Pernot Sprangers, last May.

He had kneed the woman in the chest, knocking her back into her car seat, after the two had had an argument over her refusal to follow his orders, when she had also scratched him.

The case was revealed by Maltatoday after the newspaper received a DVD with edited footage of the incident. The accused was suspended from the police force.

The court yesterday heard the evidence all over again in a seven-hour hearing which started at 8.30 a.m. The sentence will be handed down on October 12.

One of the points stressed by the officer's defence lawyers, Jason Azzopardi and Kris Busietta, in yesterday's appeal hearing concerned the DVD. They argued that the court should not have accepted it as evidence given that the author was anonymous and that it had been edited.

They also argued that Mr Sant had been provoked repeatedly by the woman.

Dr Azzopardi pointed out that Mr Sant had an impeccable 20-year record with the police force, stressing that both his superiors and his juniors had words of praise for the officer.

As they had done in the first court, the lawyers highlighted the extraordinary state of mind Mr Sant was in when the incident occurred.

The officer had told the court that four days before the incident he had been called to help restrain a woman who was trying to commit suicide. As he tried to restrain her, she scratched him on the hand. He later learnt she was hepatitis C positive.

He had medical tests to check if he had contracted the disease and, although initial results were negative, he had to undergo more tests within six months.

Therefore, during the incident outside Bay Street he was worried because he had been scratched by another woman just days earlier.

To make matters worse, he said, he had recently undergone bypass surgery, had stopped smoking and was more nervous than usual.

Adrian Vassallo, a medical doctor, explained that he had examined PS Sant who had three scratch marks on his arms, two of which where deep, and a contusion on his back, which had allegedly been caused during the argument he had with the French woman.

The woman had testified that the officer had kicked her in the chest and she lost consciousness as a result of the "violence of the shock" caused by the kick.

When she regained consciousness, she recalled a police constable speaking to her kindly but she did not understand him. She then drove off because the only thing she wanted to do was to leave the scene and distance herself from the police presence.

She also said that after the incident she and a friend went to the police station three times to file a report. But each time they were told that the person responsible was not there. She gave up after the third try.