Tigne exhibitionist jailed for three months for public indecency

A man with a long history of performing indecent acts in public has been jailed for three months after committing the same crime, but was cleared of stalking a woman on a technicality.

61-year-old Paul Lughermo, from Valletta, had been charged in November 2015 with offending public decency and morals, harassing a particular woman and relapsing.

In charging Lughermo, who has a string of previous convictions for similar offences, police had asked the court to impose a restraining order, as well as order the accused to undergo treatment.

Few details of the crime emerged from the sentence handed down by magistrate Aaron Bugeja earlier today, bar that several witnesses had testified that Lughermo would follow his victim when she would go for walks on the Tigne seafront, stopping whenever she stopped, with his gaze constantly fixed on the woman.

However, in February 2014, the Court of Criminal Appeal had confirmed a previous conviction of Lughermo’s, where he had been found guilty of having masturbated in public at the tal-Fekruna area of Xemxija.

In the latest case, Magistrate Bugeja said he was morally convinced that at the time in question, the accused “had, in fact, masturbated in a place open to the public.” The court had noted that the man’s stalking behaviour was causing the woman great distress and had led her to no longer feel safe while walking in the area.

Magistrate Bugeja, however, slammed the decision to prosecute the man under a general legal provision relating to harassment. The Magistrate pointed out that in 2015, the legislator had added the specific offence of stalking to the Criminal Code and could therefore not convict the man under the general provision.

"Due to the fact that the Prosecution did not file its case on the basis of the crime of stalking...when the testimony of witnesses placed it squarely within the definition of this offence, this court cannot find the accused guilty under Article 251A of the Criminal Code." 

“The Court has seen that the accused is a recidivist several times over with the same type of crime - that is offending public decency and morals by acts performed in public.” This also emerged from the man’s criminal record, the magistrate noted, adding that it was “clear that the accused cannot understand that he is not allowed to expose himself and masturbate in public.”

Lughermo was found guilty of committing indecent acts in a place accessible to the public.

The multiple convictions meant that a prison term could not be avoided, but the court also diplomatically suggested that “the history of episodes spanning several years...indicated that there were aspects of the accused’s character that need to be addressed by psychiatric and psychological professionals.”

Lughermo was jailed for three months. A restraining order prohibiting him from going to the Sliema area for three years was also imposed.