A court yesterday dismissed a claim by a prison inmate that he had suffered inhuman and degrading treatment.

In a constitutional application against the Director of Prisons and the Attorney General, Paul Caruana said he had been charged with the attempted murder of his wife on June 12, 2003.

He was also charged with illegal possession of a knife and with having seriously injured his wife.

Mr Caruana said that, in a trial by jury in July 2006, he had been acquitted of the charge of attempted murder but was found guilty of causing serious injury and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.

The sentence was confirmed on appeal in May 2007.

He claimed that, while serving his time he had been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment by prison staff and had been deprived of medical care, made to take medicine he did not need and sent to a psychiatric hospital unnecessarily.

The prison authorities denied the allegations.

Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti noted that, as would happen in any other prison, Mr Caruana had to follows the rules and could not expect to have his requests acceded to unless formal permission was given.

Neither could he expect to have his verbal requests met without the ne­cessary protocols being respected.

Such rules did not apply in the case of an emergency that could lead to danger of loss of life and the prison authorities were bound to ensure that prisoners were well treated.

Mr Caruana had directed the majority of his complaints against the prison psychiatrist, accusing him of abusing his office when he had treated him as a sick man and gave him medicine unnecessarily.

However, the evidence produced showed that Mr Caruana did require psychiatric care even before his trial was concluded.

The prison psychiatrist had concluded that Mr Caruana suffered from morbid jealousy about his wife and that he was developing paranoid traits.

As the prison authorities could not enforce psychiatric treatment themselves, Mr Caruana was taken to the forensic unit at Mount Carmel Hospital.

Another psychiatrist who examined Mr Caruana reported that, while the latter did not show signs of madness, he had an alarming rate of rigidity and obsession in his love for his wife.

Mr Caruana had, in fact, required medical treatment.

The court dismissed Mr Caruana’s claim that he had been prohibited from seeing his wife while she was recovering in hospital.

In fact, during the 18 days she spent in hospital, Mr Caruana had been escorted there twice.

That was not considered inhuman or degrading treatment, said the court.

When referring to Mr Caruana’s claim that he had been denied dental treatment, the court noted that the inmate had been taken to see a private dentist and had also been seen by the prison dentist.

The prison authorities had not ignored Mr Caruana’s claims, it concluded.