I refer to the article ‘Déjà vu for court as first ‘bikini trial’ was in 1964’ (Times of Malta, September 4).
This brought back fond memories, as I well remember my father, the late legal procurator Benedict Dingli, recounting this case in family circles at home, along with many others in his chequered and, I would dare say, colourful career.
The journalist accurately reports my father as having suggested that the court order Christine Adams to wear the bikini so it could decide whether the two-piece was indecent or not; but then goes on to state that the report does not give details as to whether Adams had actually put the bikini on in court.
I can easily answer that, of course.
According to my father, his cheeky, poker-faced suggestion, purposely made of course, had the immediately desired effect of causing untold embarrassment to the scrupulous presiding magistrate, and was in fact one of the prime motivations leading the court to dispose of the case as quickly as possible by acquittal.
Taken completely by surprise by this pincer manoeuvre, the magistrate had no other option but to uphold court decorum.
Perhaps much to dismay of reporters and the public, there was never any bikini fashion show in the halls of justice.
Because of that, the magistrate by definition was never in a position to determine whether the bikini as worn by the accused was actually indecent or not, and it is a salient principle of criminal procedural law that any doubt is to be applied in favour of the accused – in dubio pro reo.
I had the privilege of working with my father as a young lawyer from 1982 until his rather premature passing in 1993. His distinct love for the humorous side of life rubbed itself onto me and has never quite left me.