A man jailed last week after he failed to show up for an appeal hearing regained his freedom this morning after a court of criminal appeal upheld his request for his case to be re-appointed for hearing.

Joseph Pisani, 43, was handed a two-month jail term for having failed to make maintenance payments to his estranged wife.

The man appealed this conviction but did not make an appearance at the appeal hearing on March 13, thereby bringing the prison sentence into immediate effect. 

When Mr Pisani went to sign the bail book at Msida Police Station on Wednesday evening, as he is obliged to do on a daily basis, officers informed him that he was to be taken to Corradino to serve his two-month sentence.

Mr Pisani maintained that he did not know of the scheduled court hearing, and his lawyer filed a court application asking for the re-appointment of the appeal the following morning. A separate Habeas corpus application was rejected by the duty magistrate, who said they lacked the competence to decide upon the issue.

The court of appeal, presided by Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti, noted that there was "a serious element of uncertainty regarding the court usher's report." It was doubtful whether the accused had received the summons from the appeals court.

The usher involved had testified that since Mr Pisani had changed address, she had called him on his mobile phone and he had authorised her to deposit the court summons at the Msida police station, where he called daily to sign the bail book.

This bail book, exhibited in court, revealed clear discrepancies in the dates when the court usher had allegedly called at the police station to serve the notice of summons. Even the identity of the police officers who were supposed to have handed the court notice to Mr Pisani at the police station did not appear to tally with records.

The day after the delivery of the summons, the court usher had called the Msida police station and had been told that the summons had been handed over to Mr Pisani. However, on the witness stand, the man had denied having ever received the said document.

The judge had strong words of disapproval against the current practice whereby a court summons is merely deposited at a police station without any material evidence of its receipt by the person summoned.

The court declared that in this case "one could not serenely consider the court usher's report as being valid." Bearing in mind that in criminal proceedings the validity of such a report was crucial since it could lead to a person's imprisonment, the court ordered that the matter be duly notified to the Court Registrar so as to avoid similar recurrences in the future.

The court ordered Mr Pisani's release from jail "with immediate effect", revoked the previous decree declaring the abandonment of the appeal against his two-month prison sentence and declared that it would provide a date for hearing the appeal at a later stage.

Lawyer Franco Galea was defence counsel.