Defendant with mental illness cleared on technicality after breaching bail to attend medical appointment

A mentally ill defendant has been acquitted of breaching his bail conditions after breaking his court-imposed curfew to attend a mental health appointment.

The 38 year-old man, who was on bail on a separate domestic violence charge, had been on his way to Mount Carmel Hospital outside his court-imposed curfew hours – a part of his bail conditions - when he was stopped at a police roadblock. He was then arrested and charged with breaching his bail conditions.

The man’s defence raised the point that a date specified in the charges was wrong. The man had been previously released on bail in August 2020 and not September that year, as stated in the charges.

In her judgment on the matter, Magistrate Rachel Montebello observed that one of the material elements of the crime of breaching bail is proven or otherwise by the exhibition of the bail decree allegedly breached.

But the only decree exhibited by the prosecution consisted of an informal copy of one issued in August. The offence, as laid out in the charges, is limited to the breach of a particular decree dated September and does not extend to any other previous decree, said the court.

While it was true that it could be argued on the merits that whatever the date, the accused had breached a condition of a bail decree, the court said that an informal copy of a decree lacked the probatory value required.

The prosecution should have requested a correction of the subpoena, said the magistrate.

The law stated that a subpoena must clearly specify the facts of the accusation, observed the court, quoting case law in support of this.

“But in the case at hand, no correction was requested by the prosecution so that the date of the decree indicated in the charge, which is manifestly incorrect, reflect that which emerges from the evidence, although it is obvious that the prosecution was aware of the date from the beginning, as the prosecutor was the same prosecutor in this case…”

Acquitting the man of all guilt, the magistrate said the accused could not be found guilty of breaching a decree about which no evidence was exhibited.

Inspector Roderick Attard prosecuted. Lawyers Franco Debono, Michael Sciriha, Amadeus Cachia and Matthew Xuereb were defence counsel.