A man arrested last week on cannabis-related charges has disappeared after spending a night in police custody and then being taken to hospital complaining of chest pains.

It would appear that the man, 41-year-old Terry Embleton, walked out of Mater Dei Hospital at some point last Wednesday.

But one week on, there is still no sign of Mr Embleton. His wife Kerry, tired and shaking with worry, says she has no idea where he is or what to do.

“I haven’t eaten for days, we’ve never spent a week apart,” she said in between tears. “I’m an alien in an alien land and now I feel so empty inside. What do I do?” she pleaded with The Times.

She and her husband had been arrested in the evening of December 13, following a police raid at their house in Qawra.

The police then issued a statement saying they had arrested three people – the couple and a Maltese man – in connection with the find, which included 74 small packets of cannabis and a single ecstasy pill.

The police media relations unit (CMRU) yesterday said Mrs Embleton was never under arrest while her husband had been released from police custody upon his admission to Mater Dei Hosptial on Wednesday morning.

Deputy Commissioner Joe Cachia corroborated the CMRU’s statement.

‘SMS left me terrified’

However, the assertion contradicts what the police said in its original statement about the cannabis bust: that they were keeping the Britons and a third man under arrest and that they were expected to be arraigned shortly.

The police statement was issued at 12.54 p.m. on that Wednesday, hours after, the police say, Mr Embleton had been released on the same day.

While Mrs Embleton was allowed to leave the previous night, after the raid took place, her husband was kept in police custody. He was taken to hospital the following morning after complaining of chest pains.

When hospital staff decided to keep him under observation, the police opted to release him, Assistant Commissioner Cachia said.

At some point, Mr Embleton left hospital without informing hospital staff, according to the police, but not before his wife had paid him a visit.

“When I found out that he was in hospital I was desperate to see him, even though the police told me I wasn’t allowed to,” she told The Times. She went to hospital at some point between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and found her husband in a hospital bed, “accompanied by a policeman”, she said.

At 9.54 p.m. that evening, she received a text message signed by an Inspector Theuma which, she said, “left me absolutely terrified”. Inspector Dennis Theuma is the police officer responsible for the case and Mrs Embleton said he had spoken to her.

The message, seen by The Times read: “Kery tel tery that if he does not return to hospital he is in deep sh** and can 4 get d deal. Now u r helping a fugitive as wel congrats! I wil not rest til i track u both down – insp theuma”.

This was the first she had heard of her husband’s disappearance, Mrs Embleton said. “The text message left me cold. I immediately called the inspector back to try and understand what was going on, and that’s when I found out that he was missing.”

Assistant Commissioner Cachia told The Times yesterday that while Mr Embleton had been released from police custody upon his admission to hospital and was therefore free to walk out whenever he pleased, “police investigations had not been concluded and we still wanted to speak with him”.

He declined to comment on the text message, saying that he had no knowledge of it. Nor could he say whether it was standard procedure for police inspectors to send text messages of the sort.

Gripping a chipped mug of tea, Mrs Embleton described a week from hell, with the police raid being followed by “hissing and spitting” from neighbours, a landlady who seemed eager to evict her and a number of clients – Mrs Embleton is a house maid – abruptly cancelling work agreements.

All of this was interspersed with regular visits from the police in search of her husband. “They came at all hours of the day and night,” she said, “but I haven’t seen him since he was in hospital.”

With her husband’s whereabouts still unknown, her income severely curtailed and the threat of homelessness looming larger with every passing day, Mrs Embleton sat on the edge of her bed shaking her head sadly.

“I can’t sell our car because police have confiscated it and I can’t go stay at my mum’s in England because they’ve also got my passport. I’m hanging onto the hope that Terry is alright, because it’s all I’ve got left. I’ve lost my whole life in one week.”