Darryl Borg, who was wrongly accused of a crime, spoke of his despair yesterday when he realised he faced a long prison term for a crime he did not commit. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier.

Being locked behind bars for a crime he did not commit almost drove Darryl Borg to the brink of despair, he said after being formally exonerated yesterday.

Never having set foot in prison, albeit convicted for minor possession of drugs and a fight when he was 16, Mr Borg, now 27, said he could not grasp what was happening to him.

He appeared in court last Wednesday accused of carrying out a hold-up on a shop in his hometown, Birkirkara. He was remanded in custody protesting his innocence only to be released two days later when a 22-year-old confessed to the crime.

The theft had been investigated by both the Criminal Investigation Department and the district police and, for reasons the Police Board is in the process of establishing, each branch arrested a suspect and arraigned them.

Mr Borg recounted yesterday that he was interrogated by four police officers who bombarded him with questions, told him they were there to help him and advising him that he had better admit to the charges to secure a reduced punishment.

The police went to the hospital and arrested him

The CID officers told him they had crystal clear photographic evidence showing it was him who committed the crime, he said.

In view of the culprit’s confession last Friday, Mr Borg was yesterday formally exonerated when the police filed an application in court asking for the case against him to be withdrawn.

Sitting near his mother, Jane, Mr Borg said his arrest came like a bolt out of the blue. His ordeal started on August 5 when his mother, who had just dropped him off at Mount Carmel Hospital for treatment related to his attention deficit disorder, received a phone call from the police asking where her son was.

She told them he was at Mount Carmel and they told her to forget about the call and instructed her not to mention it to her son. She put her mind at rest and thought that, perhaps, they had made a mistake.

Unbeknown to her, Mr Borg continued, the police went to the hospital and arrested him shortly after.

On returning from work, his mother found the police outside her home with her son in tears pleading that he had nothing to do with the crime.

Ms Borg said that when the crime occurred he was with her at home and the only time she was not near him was when she was taking a shower.

“How could he have carried out a hold-up while I was showering without me not noticing,” she asked, unable to understand how the police were so certain that her son was the culprit.

Both Mr Borg and his mother expressed profound appreciation of Police Inspector Elton Taliana, from the Birkirkara district. Had Mr Taliana not solved the case her son would still be in custody facing a lengthy prison term, she said.

Mr Borg said that in the two days he spent in preventive custody at Corradino Correctional Facility he was about to go crazy knowing that he was innocent and despairing when inmates told him that he was facing four to five years behind bars.

Ms Borg said she could not comprehend how the police could identify her son through CCTV footage when it was so obviously not him. She also pointed out that the two suspects arraigned were so different in stature.

The way the police pursued the case so vigorously made her believe this was no mistake, Ms Borg said.

The police depicted her son as being a cocaine addict when he was anything but. Admittedly, he had taken cocaine but was not the addict and the danger to society the police had portrayed him to be, Mr Borg said.

Ms Borg now demands answers and wants to know the truth.