‘It is very sad that the patient died. People don’t realise, perhaps, that the surgeon is one of the people who suffers most when patients die. We want our patients to live – not because of our reputation, but because we are trained to cure patients... When you have patients who are with you for three months and are dealing with them day and night, they are not only your patients, they become your friends. And when a patient dies, a surgeon loses not only a patient but also a friend. We go through bereavement as well. I treated him to the best of my ability. Things don’t always go as predicted. Things can go wrong... If you don’t drive, you will never have an accident. People’s expectations are very high. They expect everyone to survive. We hope that everyone will survive, but we know from statistics and from bitter experience, that some people will die.”
The excerpt I quote here – although as moving and inspirational as the American television medical drama Grey’s Anatomy voice-overs, which have kept so many of us riveted over the years – was extracted from a far less glamorous source. It forms part of the testimony of an accused and of an erudite judgment that was delivered last month. I don’t have the space here, but suffice to say that seven years after having been unfairly charged with the involuntary homicide of a patient, a top Maltese surgeon was acquitted.
When I read the judgment, three or four articles instantly materialised and a multitude of thoughts ran amok in my head.
Lawyers lose cases every day with impunity and without consequence. Some losses are genuine and can’t be helped. Others are lost on account of procedural errors and sheer legal negligence.
And here was a doctor who, after ‘losing his case’ blamelessly, was slapped with what I can only call a hasty and overzealous charge to say nothing of a seven-year sword of Damocles over his head.
The detailed judgment acquitting the defendant was delivered more or less at the same time we learned about the parallel investigation of a hold-up, carried out by the elitist Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the ‘second fiddle’ District Police, which started on the wrong foot when the CID arrested the wrong guy.
Within 48 hours, under the aegis of Inspector Elton Taliana, the District Police arrested and charged a second suspect who admitted to the hold-up, thus sparing Darryl Borg, the man mistakenly charged, a potential seven-year wait.
The CID seem to have taken umbrage to Taliana’s haste in charging the right guy. Had Taliana delayed pressing charges, it might have given them time to effect some serious damage control.
The CID’s biggest concern was not Borg’s illegal and unnecessary arrest, but rather that they had been shown up by their subordinates. Their gripe was about the superior unwritten law Taliana ought to have ‘protected his own’ before anyone else.
Instead of cutting their losses and acknowledging their mistake, the CID resorted to the world’s oldest and most played blame game.
As a result, the whole case was polarised, politicised and suddenly we had two camps. Taliana’s camp who hailed him as a hero v the CID camp who demonised him for taking two whole days (!) to inform the CID investigating officers that they had the wrong man.
From the minute someone is arrested and until he has spoken to a lawyer, released a statement, volunteered an admission and had a court hearing, two days have gone by – if you are lucky.
Hold-ups are notoriously committed by two or more people anyway, so risking a premature release might have had more serious repercussions for the police, long term.
I hold no brief for Taliana. If his credibility has been an issue before, I am not here to defend that. There may or may not have been an ulterior rivalry motive, but that is incidental. This story disturbed me, but not for reasons it disturbed most everyone else.
The whole country seems to have missed the point. This should not have turned into a PN Taliana v PL CID point-scoring exercise.
The question we should be asking is: why was Borg arrested to begin with? What sort of evidence or reasonable suspicion led to that arrest? If, as I suspect, the arrest took place on the basis of an informant, who in all probability would never have testified, that is exactly what the Police Board should be investigating – the flimsy and superficial way people continue to be arrested.
The CID’s biggest concern was not Darryl Borg’s illegal and unnecessary arrest, but rather that they had been shown up by their subordinates
I have trouble with journalists who jump to conclusions without investigating their stories and evaluating their ‘information’, but coming from the police, it is that much more terrifying.
That we have made a political meal of this story underscores what a short-sighted and petty nation we are – unable to see the bigger picture beyond blue and red. What happened to Borg is a frequent occurrence though few are as lucky.
Charging someone erroneously isn’t just a case of mistaken identity. There are other far more subtle and sophisticated ways of doing so.
My worry is that on account of the palaver that came to pass, another officer will think twice before bringing a similar injustice to light.
But by far the most serious consideration is that notwithstanding their manifest fallibility, our courts continue to romanticise the prosecution, roll out the red carpet and accede to their flimsy ‘unreasonable’ charges and requests while systematically denying bail.
I have no hesitation in saying that the courts are dazzled by the prosecution and favour them over the defence, affording them the unquestionable belief some still reserve for the clergy, although we ought to have learned that everyone is human and fallible.
Which is why, when I read a judgment like the one I quote here, where against all odds, the court finds for the defence, a little of my faith in the justice system is restored.