Detention Services Officer gave inmate gifts in exchange for sex acts

A court has condemned a Detention Services Officer’s cynical reception of sexual favours from a female detainee, in exchange for not revealing that she had a contraband mobile phone, as “deplorable” – but was unable to convict him of blackmail because he had not threatened to file a police report or criminal complaint or to defame her, an essential element of the crime.

The Court of Magistrates, presided by Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech, heard Police Inspector Therese Sciberras testify to having investigated allegations against Aronne Gravina made by MN, a female asylum seeker from Cameroon, who had been detained at the Hal Far detention centre in 2011.

MN had opened up whilst being held at Mount Carmel hospital, after attempting to take her own life by drinking shampoo, upon being told of the death of her mother.

She told the police inspector that she and the accused would exchange gifts of contraband for sexual favours, but that he had never forced her to do anything against her will. He had warned her that he would stop supplying her with contraband if she stopped fulfilling her part of the arrangement and later suggested that he could report her to the centre’s authorities for possession of a prohibited mobile phone.

It was only after her release from detention that the woman had plucked up the courage to file a report. She informed Gravina of this and he had tried to dissuade her from pressing on with the report, because he had a family.

Among the gifts allegedly given by the camp guard to the detainee was a mobile phone – a prohibited item.

After MN was committed to Mount Carmel Hospital, as well as during her subsequent move to sheltered housing, she said the accused would send gifts to her and her friends and pester her to withdraw her criminal complaint against him, saying he loved her.

Despite her misgivings, she said she had agreed to meet the accused one last time in Balzan, to spare her friends further annoyance. She claimed to have been raped during this meeting, but had not told the police at the time because she was pregnant with her boyfriend’s child and because she had felt threatened by the accused.

Gravina denied having made any sexual advances or asking for sexual favours, saying that he would buy gifts only for MN, out of the 40 female detainees, because he felt drawn to her and pitied her. He denied buying the mobile phone for her.

The court said it fully believed the woman’s account, noting that many of the details of MN’s account had been confirmed by the accused’s testimony. The only point of divergence was the man’s denial of having ever threatened or blackmailed her, it said.

The woman, now a mother who had since left detention and settled happily with her boyfriend, stood to gain nothing by putting herself through the humiliation pressing on with the allegations, the court observed.

“There is no doubt that the accused hadn’t the slightest hesitation to exploit the fact that MN had a mobile phone, which he himself had maliciously given to her, in order to obtain sexual favours from her.

“What makes this course of conduct even more deplorable is the fact that it took place whilst the injured party was in his custody as a Detention Services Officer.”

But after examining jurisprudence on section 250 of the Criminal Code, under which Gravina was charged, the court pointed out that the crime he was accused of consisted of “threatening to accuse or to make a complaint against, or to defame a person” with intent to make gain.

“Therefore in the light of jurisprudence and in view of the fact that the threat was not of filing a police report, a criminal complaint or of defaming her as being guilty of a crime... this can never amount to the crime in terms of section 250 of the Criminal Code.”

The court found Gravina not guilty of the charge and discharged him. It ordered a ban on the publication of the woman’s name to avoid secondary victimisation.