Darryl Borg, right, pictured after he was released when another man admitted the hold-up.

Inspector Elton Taliana was tipped off about the true identity of the person who committed the hold up on The Convenience Shop in Birkirkara almost 36 hours after Darryl Luke Borg, 27, had been wrongfully charged and remanded in custody. His informer told him the culprit was Roderick Grech, 22, known as iċ-China iż-Żghir and even identified his picture at the police station in Birkirkara.

From then on, Mr Taliana proceeded with his investigation and even asked a duty magistrate (who was not the same as the one inquiring the hold-up) for a warrant to arrest the man, but at no point did he draw anyone’s attention to the fact that the police may have charged the wrong man.

Eventually, even after Mr Grech admitted his crime during questioning, the inspector failed to alert anyone.

At one point, he called a superintendent for guidance because he was not sure how to fill in the charge sheet – even here, he failed to say that he planned to charge a second person in relation to the hold-up or highlight the fact there was an innocent man in prison.

Eventually, the case went to court and the blunder was exposed, leading to the action that eventually saw Mr Borg finally released.

In its conclusions, the Police Board chastised Insp. Taliana for keeping mum all along.

“The board is of the view that these shortcomings were due to the fact that Insp. Taliana, instead of cooperating with other police officers – who he knew had investigated and charged another person in court – chose to forge ahead without communicating with any colleague or superior who had been in touch with him on the case.”

Mr Taliana defended himself during the proceedings referring to Article 37 in the criminal code which says a magistrate should take action to free someone who has been wrongly charged.

But the board insisted that Mr Taliana’s response still did not explain why he failed to inform his superiors about the matter even when he was on the phone with one of them asking for advice on how to write a charge sheet.

Mr Taliana’s lawyer Joe Zammit Maempel, however, insisted on this point in a statement issued yesterday. He said his client was legally obliged to arraign the man as soon as possible to draw the attention of a magistrate to the fact that the wrong person had been charged.

“Roderick Grech admitted with my client at 11.25am that he had committed the crime. Immediately afterwards he wrote the charge sheet and went to pick up the balaclava and ‘weapon’ [toy gun] used in the hold-up. He drove on to the law courts in Valletta and at 12.15pm [50 minutes after the admission at the Birkirkara police station] he was charged before a duty magistrate,” Dr Zammit Maempel said.

What would have happened if instead of charging the man in court (as he was legally bound to do) the inspector had instead informed his superiors, Dr Zammit Maempel asked rhetorically?

“Would he have reduced the two days and 50 minutes Mr Borg spent in prison by a minute or two or would he have prolonged his stay?” he asked, pointing out that the courts alone had the power to have the man released.

The Police Commissioner, however, stressed that it was standard procedure for police officers to inform their superiors of their actions, particularly when an arrest was involved.

“It is expected of every officer to inform his superior officers of each and every arrest and reason for it. It has always been the practice for officers to inform their superiors of what they are doing – you are not an island. Your superior has to know to oversee the process,” he said, emphasising that this should have especially been the case with a person having been wrongly charged.