A solitary fingerprint at a crime site was not considered to be enough evidence to nail the alleged culprit behind a burglary.

Roderick Gerada was targeted by investigators as the prime suspect behind the robbery of a Birkirkara home on June 22, 2008.

When they went home at 5.30pm, the elderly couple were in for a nasty shock as their home had been broken into and ransacked. Various valuables and cash, worth some €20,000, had gone missing.

The police were called in and forensic experts took fingerprints from the crime scene. One of two samples, lifted from a box in the couple's bedroom, matched the right-hand index finger of the accused.

This tell-tale piece of evidence lay at the heart of the prosecution’s case against Mr Gerada, who strongly denied in his statement to the police that he had been involved in the burglary.

The court, presided over by Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona, observed that although the forensic expert had reported a ‘positive match’ between the fingerprint sample and that of the accused, there was a certain degree of ‘contradiction and confusion’ between the only two samples lifted from the crime scene.

One solitary fingerprint could not serve as unequivocal proof that the accused was guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, the court observed.

For this reason, the court declared the accused not guilty and acquitted him on the basis of insufficient evidence.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Amadeus Cachia were defence counsel.