An educational officer accused of threatening a judge by telling her that if she ordered him to leave his matrimonial home he would go and sleep outside her house told a court his statement was never meant as a threat.

Vincent Martin Carabott, 57, of Birkirkara, yesterday insisted with Magistrate Josette Demicoli that it was “just an expression”.

Mr Carabott appeared in court without a lawyer and refused the magistrate’s offer to have one appointed for him. He told her that his case “over something so small” had dragged out for far too long and he just wanted to get on with it.

The sitting was a turbulent one, with Mr Carabott insisting on defending himself without knowing the laws and procedures in court. He had to be stopped and corrected by the magistrate on several occasions and even Madam Justice Lofaro’s parte civile lawyer, Joe Giglio, lost his patience on a couple of occasions.

Before he took the witness stand, Magistrate Demicoli warned him that, as the defendant, he had the right to remain silent all the way and could opt not to testify. However, he shrugged his shoulders and told her: “If you want me to testify, I will”.

On the witness stand, Mr Carabott went on about how the prosecution had done a “copy and paste” exercise with his statement, only using the parts that they thought suited it best.

The accused said that he had told Madam Justice Lofaro that he was “a social case” who would have no place to sleep if he were to be evicted from the matrimonial home. “I said I could sleep outside the court or the magistrate’s home but it was just an expression, a colloquial way of putting it that I had nowhere to stay,” he said.

He claimed that he had not been informed about the evidence against him, but prosecuting Inspector Sylvana Briffa interjected, saying that he was trying to mislead the court as she had given him full disclosure and also accused him of lying under oath.

A calm Mr Carabott replied that he was willing to face the consequences if that was the case.

Magistrate Demicoli asked whether he had been allowed to consult a lawyer before his interrogation but he would not reply. Clearly unwilling to give a direct “yes or no” answer, he eventually he said he had not seen the charges in writing before speaking to a lawyer.

“I never had an intention of harming the magistrate or her family. I simply told her: ‘If I am thrown out onto the street, wouldn’t I come and sleep on your doorstep?’ It wasn’t a statement of intent but I ended up deprived of my liberty and was locked up in the maximum security division in prison. I cannot understand...” he said. 

“If you cannot understand, then engage a lawyer, rather than trying to do it yourself,” Dr Giglio told him. “There is a system that you must follow!”

In his final submissions before the case was put off to October for the final judgment, Dr Giglio said Mr Carabott had chosen his words and now had to bear the consequences.

“You are free to make insults and innuendoes, but must then shoulder responsibility for them,” he said as he added that by simply saying that this was how he expressed himself was not a defence.

Dr Giglio requested the court impose a higher degree of punishment, saying that the accused wanted “to use the law as a doormat” and that this was “dangerous and unacceptable”.

Mr Carabott sarcastically congratulated Dr Giglio on his “academic exercise” and for painting him out to be a monster.

“If I don’t have anywhere to sleep, do I disappear? What I meant was that I had no other place to stay,” he said.

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