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local
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Police furious with court leniency
By
Ray Abdilla
Some police officers and constables are furious with the way the
Courts are dishing out sentences.
One Superintendent told MaltaToday that he and some of his colleagues
cannot understand the sentences which some Magistrates are giving,
describing them as either incomprehensible or, at best, too lenient.
A police source said the government or some sort of committee should
be set up to view what is happening at Court.
"Yes, Court should be independent but it should show consistency,"
he said.
Ironically, members of the police force are on a high at the moment
because of the great number of arrests they have recently made.
The Drug squad, in particular, has achieved a string of successes,
but its members are also preoccupied that their work will be reduced
to shreds in court.
Senior police sources said they could not understand the decision
taken by Magistrate Conseulo Scerri Herrera with the acquittal of
a police sergeant accused of forging a collision report draw up
by a murdered colleague.
The Magistrate had chosen to believe the sergeant when he said he
had genuinely believed the party to the accident had been insured.
Although at the moment the police force is getting praise from all
angles, an officer said: "They're not going to give it their
all. I think the degree of enthusiasm… is somewhat lacking."
Another case which hit the headlines this week had an impact on
the Traffic police. In this case, a man was fined Lm500 and had
his licence taken away for six months, after being found guilty
of running over and involuntarily killing a woman on a zebra crossing
in Sliema three years ago.
A police insider told MaltaToday that after all these road accidents
fining someone for Lm500 and banning him from driving for six months
when he killed a woman on a zebra crossing was absurd.
And another senior police officer added his own criticism, saying:
"The magistrates apply different measures of justice: recently
a young man was jailed for three months for stealing a mobile phone."
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