A woman found guilty of filing a false report accusing her former husband of harbouring a wanted criminal on his cabin cruiser was yesterday acquitted by the Chief Justice in a case he described as being blown out of all proportion.

Mary Cassar, 54, had told Police Inspector Carlo Ellul that her husband, Edward Cassar, had a man on his boat, nicknamed Il-Pele, but did not know his actual name.

Ms Cassar was found guilty by the Magistrates’ Court of giving false information to the police and received a one-year conditional discharge last January.

But both the Attorney General and Ms Cassar appealed the decision for different reasons. The Attorney General’s appeal for a harsher punishment was thrown out while Ms Cassar’s for acquittal was upheld. Mrs Cassar divulged the information to the inspector, when she was making one of many police reports against her husband, and added that lately he had been hanging about with criminals.

The inspector told her that one of the people she identified was a wanted criminal who, he thought, was named Joseph Cini, and told her to inform him when she knew this man was on the boat.

On September 7, 2008, she phoned the inspector to tell him that he was on the boat in Għadira Bay and police officers accompanied by around 12 armed soldiers went aboard and found a certain Francis Bonnett also known as Il-Pele, but not the person the police were looking for.

Even though her intentions might not have been well meaning because of the tension between them, her intentions or bad wishes amount to a motive. That motive by itself did not concretely give the necessary elements contemplated in the crimes of falsely accusing a person and fabrication of false evidence, the Chief Justice said.

He dismissed the appeal of the Attorney General and acquitted Ms Cassar.