A magistrate yesterday ordered a policeman’s arrest after he failed to appear in court to be charged over a domestic incident involving his former partner, who is also a police officer.

Magistrate Carol Peralta issued the order after he heard lawyer Arthur Azzopardi, appearing parte civile for the woman, question whether there was anyone in the police force who was covering up for the officer.

The police officer was called for his case to be heard but he failed to appear, so the magistrate ordered that he be accompanied to court under arrest for the next sitting.

Yesterday was the second time the policeman, who is a Drug Squad officer, did not turn up in court. When he was due to appear in February, the prosecuting officer told the court he could not be notified “as he could not be found”, despite being a serving police officer reporting for work daily.

He failed to turn up again yesterday even though he had been served with the summons.

Dr Azzopardi explained to the court that the entire issue revolved around harassment his client allegedly suffered after the couple broke up in 2013.

Since the harassment allegedly began at police headquarters, his client reported the matter to the police Internal Affairs Unit. However, no investigation was ever carried out, the lawyer said. In another incident, last October, the officer allegedly went to her house in Mosta, banged on her door and swore. The woman filed a police report and the Mosta police started to investigate her claim.

Dr Azzopardi said he had informed those investigators about the pending probe into the police headquarters incident and urged them to issue charges on both incidents in the same case.

He said he had also sent a series of e-mails to high-ranking officers about the case.

However, he later learned that the police Internal Affairs Unit had never opened a file on the complaint over the police headquarters incident.

Upon seeing the charge sheet, Dr Azzopardi realised that the officer was being charged with breaching the peace, swearing in public and committing a crime he was duty-bound to prevent.

He expressed dismay that the prosecution had not included the headquarters incident in the charges and neither had it included a charge of harassment and causing her to fear violence.

The matter angered the magistrate who ordered that the two high-ranking officers mentioned by the lawyer, who knew about the case, be summoned to appear before him to explain why the policeman was only charged with breaching the peace when there was a criminal complaint over harassment and alleged threats.

He also ordered that the police officer be brought to court under arrest at the next sitting on April 29.