A specialist who gave a disputed medical opinion on the injuries suffered by business leader Vince Farrugia in an attempted murder case, yesterday admitted he had dated the man’s daughter for a while.

Dr Mallia ask Dr Samuel if he had in fact inflated the results in favour of Mr Farrugia’s case

The detail emerged in cross-examination of specialist Anthony Samuel, who faced a grilling by defence lawyers in connection with his relationship to the Farrugia family.

This was the second time he has testified in the case against Sandro Chetcuti, 38, a former member of the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU, who stands charged with Mr Farrugia’s attempted murder last year. Mr Farrugia is director general of the chamber.

The specialist’s claim that Mr Farrugia suffered fractures to the ribs had already been disputed in a previous sitting by forensic pathologist Mario Scerri and Dr Malcolm Crockford, who both said that X-rays showed no visible fractures. Asked to explain his connection to the Farrugia family yesterday, Dr Samuel said there was a connection between his father and Mr Farrugia and through the latter’s daughter Marie Claire, who is a doctor.

Under further questioning, he said he had also briefly dated her. Armed with mobile records of phone calls and SMSs sent right after the incident, lawyer Emmanuel Mallia grilled Mr Samuel on why he had previously testified that he had not contacted either Marie Claire or her brother, Jean Karl, when the phone records proved that they had communicated more than five times in the period following the alleged attack.

Dr Samuel said he could not remember and could not be expected to when the communication happened so long ago.

Dr Mallia pressed further on why he had previously said he had not contacted them, to which Mr Samuel said he was inundated with appointments and if a gap opened up or someone cancelled then he would do his utmost to fill the slot – that is what might have happened, he said.

Dr Samuel stood by his previous claim that Mr Farrugia suffered fractures and that his eighth to 11th ribs on the right side were separated and dislocated from the point where they join the sternum.The fractures, he said, showed up particularly in the vascular phase of a bone scan and the images produced from this scan were typical of fractures.Both Dr Scerri and Dr Crockford, however, have flatly disputed this, with the former saying the injuries were slight and could have even been caused by a heavy cough.

The fractures have been a bone of contention in the last three court sittings, with Dr Mallia going so far as to ask Dr Samuel if he had in fact inflated the results in favour of Mr Farrugia’s case.

This assertion was vehemently denied by Mr Samuel.

The lawyer also questioned the doctor on the number of times he had ordered a three-phase bone scan between the months of January and March of last year, when the incident happened.

Dr Mallia justified the request on the strength of a previous SMS that Marie Claire had sent her father on the night of the incident and which had been presented in court.

In it, she said: “Hi pa, I just asked Anthony Samuel to do a special scan on your ribs to check if there’s a fracture (no difference in terms of treatment, but helps court case). He will contact you through jan karl (her brother).”

The lawyer remarked that he was informed that only after the three phase bone scan was carried out on Mr Farrugia was it used on other patients.

The doctor said that in 2010 the bone scan was used 150 times, seven of those were scans for fractured ribs, of which four turned out to be positive.

Asked specifically for the time period, January to March, Dr Samuel said he could not answer that and when asked if he was in position to say how many scans were carried out in 2009, he said he did not have that information either.

The case continues.