Good manners get driver off the hook

A man was acquitted of drink driving by the appeals court after notes taken by a police officer showed the man to be "quite polite and rational".

Jan Spiteri had been fined €465 and disqualified from driving for six months after being found guilty of drink driving and refusing to take a breathalyser test last January.

The officer who stopped him had told the court that when he asked Mr Spiteri to perform a breathalyser test, he refused, adding that the man had a strong smell of alcohol but was "rational and quite polite".

Mr Spiteri appealed and the judge said that the smell of alcohol was not enough to find a man guilty of drink driving, especially once the person was described as rational.

On the night he was stopped by the police, Mr Spiteri had just been involved in a fight at Palace Square in Valletta.

In fact, the police were in the area after being alerted about the brawl.

Mr Spiteri admitted that he had been involved in an argument and had been hit several times in the face. The police stopped him as he was fleeing in his car.

He had refused to take the breathalyser test because he was concerned that the pressure from blowing into the instrument would damage his face where plates had been inserted following a car accident a few years back.

Half his face had to be reconstructed as a result of the accident and when he was punched that night he wanted to rush to a polyclinic to ensure everything was fine.

Mr Spiteri told the court that when he had refused to take the breathalyser test he had asked the police to take him to the clinic but was instead taken to the depot.

The court also took into consideration the fact that it was never proven that Mr Spiteri had been driving dangerously. On the contrary, he had stopped when asked to.

Accepting Mr Spiteri's version of the events, Mr Justice David Scicluna revoked the previous sentence and acquitted him.