Court orders re-issuing of judgment in unlicenced private eye case

A judgment in criminal proceedings against a man, who was jailed last April for acting as an unlicenced private investigator and harassing a lawyer’s family, will have to be re-issued after the Court of Magistrates (Gozo) quoted the wrong law in its judgment against him.

Alfred Attard had been sentenced to 6 months in prison and ordered to stay away from the Mompalao family for 5 years by Magistrate Joe Mifsud, after being found guilty of acting as a private eye and following the movements of a client’s ex-wife during separation proceedings. Attard had filed an appeal the following month.

In that appeal it was argued, amongst other things, that although Attard had been charged with harassing lawyer Kevin Mompalo and his family, the evidence showed that “if anything, the parte civile in these proceedings was Hanyu Dong,” and that therefore the offence did not subsist, as she did not feature anywhere in the charges.

It was the Court of Criminal Appeal itself which, in a decree, had raised the point of whether the judgment was null as the court of first instance had cited the wrong article of the law, which dealt with the use of “private guard services” as opposed to the preceding article of the law which stipulates that private guards and agencies offering such services had to be licenced.

“This, however does not lead to the annulment of the entire proceedings before the First Court, but the nullity is limited only to the sentence and every preceding part of the proceedings against the appellant remains untouched…” said the judge.

The judge sent the case back to the court of first instance to re-issue the judgment, this time quoting the correct article of the law under which he was being found guilty.

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