A man has been cleared of raping his wife almost 10 years ago after doubts were raised on the woman’s version of events.

Magistrate Marseann Farrugia found Anthony Cremona, 43, of Valletta, not guilty of raping his wife, Denise, in October 2005 at her flat in Msida.

The woman and her three children aged 11, 10 and three had gone to a bar in Gżira where they met Mr Cremona. The couple had been separated for around two years. He tried to hug her but she told him to let her be.

Ms Cremona left the bar and went home. Four hours later, at 11.30pm, Mr Cremona turned up at her house and she let him in. The children were asleep at the time. They started talking in the kitchen and she went to the bedroom where the youngest child was asleep. Mr Cremona followed her.

In his statement to the police, Mr Cremona admitted to having sex with his estranged wife but insisted that he stopped when she told him to. The woman said she tried resisting him but could not manage. She also said he pinned her to the bed and didn’t let her move.

The court said it could not understand how the woman opened the door when she had claimed to have been raped the previous month. Nor could the court understand why the woman went to the bedroom when it was “obvious” that her ex-husband would follow her, especially after having turned up at her doorstep at 11.30pm, claiming he wanted to see the children he had seen at the bar a few hours earlier. No struggle seemed to have taken place in the bedroom and neither did it result that any of the children was woken up. 

Lawyers Veronique Dalli and Dean Hili were defence counsel.

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