TV presenter Peppi Azzopardi was yesterday accused by a lawyer of intentionally prejudicing a criminal case against a woman charged with forcing her daughter to invent sex abuse allegations against her father.

Lawyer Martin Fenech, representing Lisa May Camilleri, said Mr Azzopardi’s TV talk show Xarabank had actively sought to influence the proceedings.

Ms Camilleri is pleading not guilty to perjury. The prosecution is alleging that she persuaded her daughter, Leanne, to lie about her father, Emanuel, who spent nearly 400 days in jail after he was found guilty of defiling his daughter.

He was serving a two-year term but was provisionally released by order of the Constitutional Court pending the outcome of the case against his former wife.

Mr Camilleri, 42, has always maintained his innocence.

On Monday, his daughter pleaded guilty to perjury, though the court gave her some time to think it over.

Police Inspectors Sandro Camilleri and James Grech together with lawyer Tonio Azzopardi, representing Mr Camilleri as parte civile, asked for a recording of a particular episode of Xarabank to be produced as evidence. In it, the daughter appears making an admission that she had lied under oath.

Dr Fenech strongly objected to the request, arguing that Mr Azzopardi actively sought through the programme to prejudice the criminal proceedings against his client. The Broadcasting Authority had actually censured the programme because it breached his client’s rights.

It is unheard of for a police officer to leave prison in the same car as an accused person and his lawyer

The “best part” of the programme, he said, was as Insp. Camilleri, Dr Azzopardi and Mr Camilleri were filmed leaving prison when Mr Camilleri was provisionally released.

It was unheard of for a police officer to leave prison in the same car as an accused person and his lawyer, Dr Fenech said.

The officer interjected, saying he always followed the Police Commissioner’s orders.

Mr Azzopardi testified that he had stopped his cameraman from filming Ms Camilleri as he believed that the name of an accused person should not be published unless found guilty.

The woman’s name was not mentioned during the programme and a comment by her daughter that she had been forced to lie under oath was deliberately left out not to prejudice the case.

Magistrate Ian Farrugia said that, for the time being, the video recording of the programme in question should not be exhibited as evidence.

When the defence requested bail, the prosecution, objected arguing that the girl was a vulnerable person and, therefore, there was a very real fear her mother might contact her.

Dr Fenech noted that once his client’s daughter had been charged, she would not be able to testify in her mother’s case until her own case was over. Although she had pleaded guilty, the case might drag on for months and, in the meantime, his client would remain in custody.

Magistrate Farrugia said that judging by what he had heard so far, the girl was not a vulnerable person and granted her mother bail against a personal guarantee of €5,000.

He warned her that should she or anyone related to her even glare at her daughter, even from 50 metres away, she would be imprisoned.