Club bouncers acquitted of beating up footballer

A court has acquitted four bouncers, charged with causing grievous injuries to a former football player, after it heard a witness testify to being told by alleged victim that he “was after financial compensation.”

Police Inspector Edel Mary Camilleri had charged the men Brian Bellotti, 31, Renard Tabone, 37, Graeme McKay, 34 and Marflene Cricchiola, 29, with inflicting grievous bodily harm on the person of Jeffrey Chetcuti during an incident that took place in June 2008 inside Havana club in Paceville.

Chetcuti, a footballer who played for Sliema Wanderers at the time, recalled how he had been walking down the steps of the nightclub with a female friend when a group of Italians began to harass her.

Chetcuti had told the Italians to stop, at which point a fight broke out. A number of security staff at the club intervened to calm the situation and eject the troublemakers from the club.

Chetcuti alleged that when he told the Italian to leave her alone, he was suddenly pushed down the stairs of the club by one of the bouncers. At the bottom of the stairs, Chetcuti said, he was kicked in the face, suffering a broken nose and tooth as a result.

In her testimony, the female friend Chetcuti had been sticking up for did not recall that he had been pushed, but confirmed that someone was kicking him in the head while he was on the ground. She did not recognise the person in court.

The court was told by the doctor who had initially treated Chetcuti that he had suffered injuries compatible with a tumble down a flight of steps, another doctor subsequently testifying that he had suffered a deviated nasal septum, which would constitute grievous injury. Additionally, he had suffered two broken teeth, which had since been repaired.

For their part, the bouncers explained that they had taken Chetcuti outside, as was their duty, when they saw trouble brewing between him and the Italians. As he was going down the stairs leading to the club, the man had missed a step and fallen headlong down the rest of stairs. They denied kicking the footballer while he was on the ground.

Magistrate Carol Peralta noted that Chetcuti’s version had not been corroborated by independent eyewitnesses and that, in fact, one of his companions had confirmed that he had not, at any time, seen the bouncers kicking him.

One of the accused bouncers, Bellotti had been identified by two witnesses as the person who pushed Chetcuti down the stairs which had led to the superficial injuries. The nasal injury was only mentioned some time later and the court felt that it had insufficient evidence to attribute this to the incident, especially given the victim’s sporting background.

The final nail in the coffin for the prosecution's case, according to the court, was the testimony of a confidant of the accused, who had testified that Chetcuti had told him that he was after financial compensation.

The court said this made it even less inclined to believe Chetcuti's version of events and it ruled the incident to be have been purely accidental. 

Lawyer Joe Giglio defended the four bouncers.