Former No Deposit Cars director's reputation led to driving-related charges against him, defence claims

A lawyer representing former No Deposit Cars director Christian Borg has claimed that charges of driving without a licence or insurance and threatening a police officer were motivated by Borg’s bad reputation.

The criminal proceedings against 29-year-old Borg, in which he is accused of driving a Range Rover without a licence or insurance cover and threatening a public officer in the line of duty, continued before Magistrate Nadine Lia on Monday morning.

The incident in question took place in June 2018 when Borg had been approached by an RIU police officer outside the Transport Malta offices, on suspicion that he did not have a driver’s licence. The defence is claiming that although Borg had indeed been sitting in the driver seat, he had only been looking for some papers and that the car had been stationary. 

The last witness in the case, a Citadel Insurance representative, testified this morning about the vehicle, confirming that it had been registered to Borg and had been insured with the company on a third-party, insured only driving basis, for two years till 2020.  

Defence lawyer Charles Mercieca informed the court that the defence had compiled a transcript of what was said in footage exhibited - a one-minute clip not played in open court -  which it offered to exhibit. The accused himself had compiled the transcript, confirmed the lawyer, answering a question from the court. 

The court then turned to prosecuting police Inspector Paul Camilleri,  who told the court that he had no objection to the request.

The court, in view of the non-objection, upheld the defence’s request, but only to allow the lawyer to indicate what parts of the footage he would be referring to during his final submissions.

The most serious charge was that of driving without a licence, said Inspector Camilleri in his closing submissions. The police officers involved had exhibited an affidavit from Transport Malta, confirming that Borg’s driving licence had been revoked in 2013 and had not been reissued in 2018.

With regards the charges of threatening the officer and driving without insurance cover, in view of the testimony heard today, the inspector said that Borg appeared to have been insured, but stressed that he should not have been allowed to drive, as he did not have a valid driving licence.

In his rejoinder, Mercieca argued that the threats attributed to Borg - that of suing the officer for libel and freezing all his assets - were exaggerated. “I think it would be unfair to treat this as a threat...  had he said ‘I'm going to run you over and kill you,’ that would have been a threat,” said the lawyer.

“We have a situation where what happened, happened because the defendant is Christian Borg,” argued the lawyer, submitting that the defendant’s reputation cast “a long shadow” over him. The minute-long video clip had captured the entire incident from the time Borg had been approached in the car until the officer left, claimed the defence.

The officer’s affidavit says that Borg had been driving but the evidence showed that no driving took place, Mercieca said, also arguing that the exhibition of the officer’s version of events in the form of an affidavit when he was able to testify normally, rendered that evidence inadmissible.

The Magistrate pointed out that the law says that the police “may” exhibit the affidavit in such a manner.

Mercieca added that the affidavit was "false, not reliable and not credible." No evidence to show that Borg had no driving licence at the time had been exhibited either, he said.

He insisted that the vehicle had been insured and that Borg had told the police this on the day of his arrest, arguing that this “showed that the prosecution - the Commissioner of Police, not the inspector in question - stressed the lawyer, had filed the charge when they knew it would not be proven”.

The video clip showed that the words mentioned in the affidavit “did not appear to have been said at all, by any one involved,” Mercieca submitted.

“That a police officer comes and accuses a citizen of a crime, takes an oath on those words and arraigns him in court, in the knowledge that it is not true, is unjust,” he said. 

“Even had he said those words, the Criminal Court teaches us that when a person advertises his own defence, that is not outrage. This goes to show how these charges were issued, not due to some type of reasonable suspicion, but because of other circumstances.”

Inspector Camilleri rebutted the defence’s argument, reminding the court that the defendant claimed not to have been driving the vehicle, but had been found behind the wheel and that the police officer involved had also told the court that Borg had been driving.

The case was adjourned to October for judgment to be delivered.