A magistrate yesterday conditionally discharged a man for kidnapping his own son from a Sliema institution in 2004 and chastised three police inspectors for failing to obtain basic evidence on a much longer list of charges.
Magistrate Giovanni Grixti was ruling on the case of a 60-year-old man, whose name cannot be published to protect the identity of the boy. The man was found guilty of kidnapping his son, who was nine years old at the time, from St Patrick’s School, where he had been placed under a care order.
The man was also charged with threatening, assaulting and slightly injuring two police officers and trying to seriously injure them when he drove a car in their direction on November 7, 2004.
Other charges include filing a false police report, driving dangerously, speeding, uttering obscene words while drunk, failing to look after himself while under the influence of alcohol, disobeying the police and breaching the conditions of a previous release.
Prosecution’s version very, very unconvincing
But Magistrate Grixti said that the prosecution had only managed to prove three of 21 charges against the defendant, namely the one related to kidnap, another for driving under the influence and another related to the breach of conditions of a previous release.
The prosecution’s version of events was “very, very unconvincing”, the court found.
The only visible result of the alleged violent attack the police had suffered was a small scratch on one of them.
The magistrate rebuked the prosecution for not summoning the alleged victims for cross-examination and therefore ordered the removal of their testimony from the acts of the case.
The prosecution had not brought any evidence to support charges of driving dangerously and without a licence or insurance cover, or the attempted injury charge.
“This is one of the reasons why the court doubts the prosecution’s version of events,” the magistrate said as he reproduced the testimony of one of the prosecuting officers: “Your honour, all I wanted to say... what I can say is that [XXXX] cooperated with the police even though it took us between 11am and 8pm to convince him, but he finally went to get the child and brought him to the police station. This is what I’d like to say.”
The accused told Magistrate Grixti that he had decided to take his son away from the school because he visited him every day and always found him crying. He wanted to take him home to join his three siblings, who were in his custody.
The magistrate said that while he understood the emotions that could have led to the kidnap, the man’s decision to take the child from the institute where he had been placed under a care order was “a bad decision” for him and also the child, who suffered a greater trauma. He therefore conditionally discharged the man for three years.
Inspectors Anthony Cassar, Claudine Vella and Raymond Aquilina prosecuted, while lawyer Mark Busuttil appeared for the man.