Just two days after he was arrested by Surrey police on the strength of a European Arrest Warrant, fraudster Patrick Spiteri was granted bail by the Westminster Magistrate’s Court in London on Monday. He spent another 48 hours at a custodial facility in London’s Wandsworth borough until the €90,000 security was posted for him at some point on Wednesday.
The decision to grant him bail is surprising considering he is wanted in Malta on suspicion of trying to avoid facing justice over charges of fraud and misappropriation. True, the bail conditions set are quite stringent: he had his passport and ID card confiscated, he cannot leave the house between 11am and 4am and has to report daily at a Guildford police station. Nonetheless, it should not be forgotten that when the Surrey police moved in to arrest him on November 8, he was hiding underneath a bed. We do not know whether the court was made aware of this salient fact. Nor is it clear whether the court was made aware of who Mr Spiteri really is and what charges he is facing.
Malta police sources said Surrey police had not updated them since the arrest but one wonders whether local police took enough of an interest in the case.
The chronology leading to Mr Spiteri’s arrest on Saturday is rather odd.
He has been presenting medical certificates claiming he is too sick to attend court since October 2013. In May, at the request of the prosecution, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera put off indefinitely one of the more substantial cases – involving misappropriation of some €4.8 million. This effectively brought to a halt another seven pending cases.
However, there was an apparent change of heart after that decision and questions were raised about the veracity of his medical certificates. So much so, that, just a few weeks ago, the same magistrate issued an order for a European Arrest Warrant.
One would hope this change of heart had nothing to do with the fact that The Sunday Times of Malta reported the decision to put off the case in May, along with the anger of alleged victims who felt cheated a second time by this outcome.
If the authorities were not prompted by the fear of a public opinion backlash, why did it take them a year to start questioning Mr Spiteri’s story?
The reality is that Mr Spiteri was only arrested in Surrey thanks to an investigation by The Sunday Times of Malta. Surrey police had no idea that a European Arrest Warrant had been issued in relation to a person living in their area and the Maltese police did not know where Mr Spiteri was.
By locating him, the newspaper helped join the dots. But did the Malta police carry out any investigation of their own accord? Was there an attempt to establish his whereabouts? Was the doctor who issued the certificates spoken to? Does he even exist?
The police, of course, have far more effective investigative means at their disposal than a newspaper and, still, for some reason - be it a heavy workload, inertia or whatever - they do not appear to have brought them to bear here.
Beyond the ramifications for Mr Spiteri and his pending fraud cases, this is cause for the government and legislators to look into this matter to seek to establish whether there are gaps in the system and how they can be plugged.
We need to know whether the courts are applying enough scrutiny in these cases and whether the police have the will, the resources and the competence to make sure the system is not taken for a ride by someone who has earned a reputation for doing precisely that.