“Suggestibility and prompting” may have played a part in a case against a man accused of attempted theft, according to a magistrate who pointed to a number of inconsistencies in the witnesses’ testimony.
Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani made the comments in acquitting 39-year-old Stacy Chircop of Ta’ Xbiex who stood charged with trying to steal from a couple’s home in Gżira on March 8, 2006.
The court had heard Ines Calì testify that she saw a man in the couple’s internal yard. She called her husband Salvatore and told him the man was wearing a dark tracksuit and had tattoos on his neck and hand.
Mr Calì then looked for the culprit in an adjacent building site and found someone who matched his wife’s description but the man pushed him and ran away.
During their investigation the police had received confidential information and put a name to the suspect. In an identification parade, Mr Calì recognised the man as the person he had come across. His wife, however, failed to recognise him.
The magistrate said the couple had known the accused had tattoos when, in fact, they could not have seen a tattoo on his hand because it was actually on his elbow which was covered by a long sleeve. Furthermore, the couple, despite allegedly seeing the tattoos, could not give a description of them and the woman, by her own admission, had only seen the accused from behind. Her husband allegedly saw the accused 10 minutes after the incident, she added.
These circumstances led her to seriously suspect that the couple had been prompted in their testimony and a certain amount of suggestibility had been used. Magistrate Padovani did not elaborate on this point. She cleared the accused of the charge.