The secretary of the Police Officers Union (POU) has defended a policeman who was seen slapping a man in the face at St George’s Bay over the weekend.

Inspector Sandro Camilleri in a Facebook post said a fuss had been made about a ‘push’ that was a bit excessive on a man who had been skinny dipping for an hour, turning face up, revealing his private parts in the presence of children and other people and ridiculing the police.

Nothing, he said, had been reported about policemen who in the same weekend were assaulted and hospitalised.

No respect was being shown to the police uniform. This was what some people wanted, the inspector said, without going into specifics.

Inspector Camilleri also told Net TV that the naked swimmer had not worried when the police arrived. Rather, he continued to swim and tried to ridicule them.  

He said that although the push was excessive, the man was not slapped, and the footage did not show him holding his face. Nor had he reported the police behaviour to the authorities.

See the video here.