A nurse who had been accused of exposing himself to three schoolgirls was acquitted by a court today.
Noel Spiteri, 44, from Mtarfa had been accused by two girls aged 15 and a third, 16 of having asked them for directions from his car while he was naked.
The court noted discrepancies in the testimony given by the girls and their two teachers in contrast with that given by Mr Spiteri who testified calmly and gave a detailed version of what had happened, the magistrate said.
The girls said that a man had stopped to ask them for directions however one of them told him that they did not live in the area and he drove on. A short time later he drove back stopped near them and said that the road was a dead end.
The girl closest to the car noticed that he could have been wearing shorts because his legs were bare however only looked down after her friend jokingly asked if he was naked.
As he drove off, the girls all burst out laughing and the person began to reverse at which point they began to shout and even threw a stone at him and phoned their teachers.
When the teachers arrived with their own cars the girls helped them find the car which stopped near.
The teachers spoke to the an and asked him why he had spoken to the girls. A teacher testified that he saw that the person’s buttons of his jeans was undone.
Mr Spiteri told the court that he was a runner and took part in marathons. On the day in question he went for a run.At one point he stopped to answer the phone when two people appeared at his car window and asked him why he had stopped to speak to the girls, which he denied.
Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani raised concerns about the police investigation because no identification parade was made. The magistrate said it was evident that the police had charged the accused under the wrong law as only one girl could have been exposed and this did not fall under the corruption of minors. He should have been charged with indecent exposure.
The magistrate said she believed that what the girl closest to the car had seen was “auto suggested” because it was only on the suggestion and question by a friend that the man could have been naked that she looked down and saw his bare legs.
There were also a number of inconsistencies in her testimony such as the point that the person was driving while holding a mobile phone in one hand and his private parts in the other, begging the question as to how he was driving.
There were also serious discrepancies in the description of the man given by the girls at the police station and the testimony given in court.
Furthermore there were also serious discrepancies in the testimony of the two teachers who said that they chased the car that the girls told them contained the man who had flashed them.
Magistrate Padovani said that basing any judgment on the testimony of the girl who allegedly saw him naked would be “unsafe and unsound”.