A sergeant who allegedly deleted a report from the police incident database was yesterday remanded in custody after hotly pleading his innocence.

Leeroy Balzan, 31, of Sliema, was charged with crimes revolving around computer misuse. More specifically, he was accused of preventing the input of data, changing, deleting or adding official data, revealing a password to give access to official files to unauthorised people, committing crimes that were damaging to a government function, doing something to prejudice his superior and committing a crime he was in duty bound to prevent.

The crimes are alleged to have occurred on November 22 between 1pm and 2pm at the Sliema police station.

Despite the prosecution’s unusual “no objection” to a request for bail by the defence, Magistrate Francesco Depasquale felt the accused should be remanded in custody due to the serious nature of the charges and his position within the police force.

Mr Balzan was one of two officers questioned over suspected tampering with evidence in the shooting incident involving Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia’s driver, Paul Sheehan, a police constable

Mr Sheehan, who allegedly fired shots in the direction of a car and its driver, Stephen Smith, following an alleged hit-and-run, has already been charged with attempted murder and the compilation of evidence is expected to start on Tuesday.

Defence lawyer Franco Debono said his client was contesting the charges and told the court the accused was not even at the Sliema police station at the time it was being claimed he accessed the information online. He argued that this could be easily ascertained by analysing the CCTV footage.

The prosecution, led by Police Inspector Sandro Camilleri, said the footage was being assessed by the inquiring magistrate.

Police Inspector Jesmond Micallef also formed part of the prosecution team and Police Inspector Daniel Zammit, Acting Police Commissioner Ray Zammit’s son, was also in the courtroom during the arraignment.

Lawyers Marion Camilleri and Angie Muscat were defence counsel together with Dr Debono.

The shooting soon exploded into a political controversy after it emerged that the original version given in a government statement on the night of the incident, claiming that Mr Sheehan had fired warning shots in the air, was incorrect because two bullets had actually hit the car.

The government said it released the information it had been given by the police but the Opposition insists there was an attempt to cover up what really happened.

The government has appointed a panel of three judges to look into the cover up claims, on top of an ongoing magisterial inquiry.