Court gives blessing to citizen’s arrest

Two men who helped a pregnant friend who was being beaten were yesterday acquitted of the illegal arrest of the aggressor who later died after a fall.

Carmelo Baldacchino, 43, from Msida and David Schembri, 38, from Żebbuġ did not commit a crime but ensured that Briton John McKuoen would not escape pending the arrival of the police, Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani ruled.

Mr McKuoen died after falling four storeys on a building site next to the Qawra apartment in which the incident occurred on September 12, 2005.

Briton Lavinia Bishop, seven months pregnant, sought help from her two long-standing friends when Mr McKuoen became aggressive following an argument over his failure to pay his part of the rent and food allowance for that month.

He even punched her in the stomach before she ran down the stairs of the apartment where she met her two friends.

Mr Schembri was carrying a diving knife, to defend himself with if the need arose. The two men went up the stairs to confront the aggressor, who was still in the apartment.

Ms Bishop told her friends that he had hidden her jewellery and even threw her mobile phone off the balcony.

Once inside the flat, the men told Mr McKuoen to calm down but he would not listen and only cooperated when Mr Schembri showed him the knife.

They allowed him to look for her mobile. He lowered a ladder into the yard of the adjacent property to look for it but, all of the sudden, the two heard him scream, followed by a loud a thump.

At that point, Mr Schembri and Mr Baldacchino called an ambulance.

Magistrate Padovani said that the men were exercising their right to carry out a citizen’s arrest and acquitted them.

Mr Schembri was found guilty of carrying a knife without a licence and given a one-week jail term suspended for six months.