Shoplifter needed stitches after he 'hit his own head against shelf,' court holds

A Zejtun shopkeeper and his two sons have been cleared of grievously injuring a man who they caught trying to shoplift from their store after managing to convince a court that the thief had repeatedly hit his own head against a metal shelf, but had also caused the three men to fear for their lives.

Joseph Micallef, 56, and his sons Clydon, 30, and Luke, 26, had been accused of inflicting grievous injury on Anthony Seisun, illegally arresting him and destroying evidence.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera was told how, on Boxing day 2012, police had received a phonecall from Micallef, a shopowner, reporting that a thief had been apprehended in the act of stealing whiskey bottles from GM Discount Store in Zejtun. Officers had arrested the thief, Anthony Seisun, at the scene and found two bottles of whiskey in the lining of a combat jacket he had been wearing.

However, Seisun, who was subsequently convicted of the theft, was certified as having suffered a cut to the cartilage of his right ear, needing stitches. His wound was classed as “grievous” as it affected his facial area.

He had taken to the witness stand in the Micallefs' trial, claiming to have been attacked by the men, together with an unidentified dark-skinned man, whilst he had been perusing the shop's spirits section. The beating had been a brutal one, he said, and had left shoe marks on his face in addition to the ear wound. The dark-skinned individual had later been ordered to clean up the blood after his beating, he added.

Police Inspector Carol Fabri had testified to being told by the men accused that officers had apprehended the man on his second visit after spotting him stuffing the bottles in his jacket on CCTV earlier that day. She had sent Seisun to hospital for treatment as his face was “covered in blood.” The doctor who had treated him had reported bruising on his forehead, cheeks and lower back. Superficial scratches and what appeared to be a bite mark accompanied his torn ear. The injuries pointed to a beating, the doctor had concluded 

Inspector Fabri had informed the court that the accused had insisted that Seisun's injuries had been self-inflicted. He had bumped into the wall several times, she reported them as saying, adding that no blood had been found on the wall. Both the Micallefs and the victim denied having ever seen a hammer, which was purportedly recovered from the scene. A court expert had concluded that DNA, taken from blood found on Clydon Micallef's shoe, did not belong to Micallef.

The court heard how the accused men had told police that Seisun had arrived in a car and that he had claimed to have used public transport, noting however, that there was no bus stop nearby. It also emerged that Seisun had been an employee of the Micallefs for a time.

Shopowner Joseph Micallef had testified that Seisun had attacked him when he had informed the shoplifter that he had called the police. He claimed to have acted in self-defence, as he had feared that Seisun could have been carrying a concealed weapon. 

He had explained the man's bloodstained face to police by claiming that the thief had made a sudden movement towards him and then started hitting his own head against the metal shelving, in his bid to escape. Such was the would-be thief's bestial aggression, claimed the accused, that “he began to fear that he was going to kill one of them.”

The father had handed the police a CCTV recording of the first shoplifting incident, but the court was told that footage of the second incident - and the alleged beating - had been “erased by mistake” whilst he had been trying to transfer the recording onto a CD in the absence of a technical expert.

The prosecution pressed him on this, pointing out that footage showed the accused and his sons viewing something on a laptop, before passing on a CD to another person. He denied that the footage showed a beating, saying it would only have shown persons restraining Seisun.

The claim that the footage had been erased was contradicted by his son, Luke's, statement to police. Luke Micallef was asked whether he had seen the CCTV footage. Luke Micallef told police whilst driving to his girlfriend's house, the CD containing the CCTV footage of the second incident had slipped off he dashboard and out of the car window. He had not delivered it to the police immediately as he “had no idea that it would be so important,” he claimed.

The second son, Clydon, had also denied beating the thief, insisting that he was protecting his father and brother from a crazed and cornered criminal. He had no way of knowing whether Seisun was armed at the time, the accused had told police. 

In spite of these glaring contradictions, the court felt this account to be more convincing than that of the would-be shoplifter.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera, who inherited the case from a previous magistrate, noted that Seisun had initially claimed to have been beaten by the sons, but had then said that he had been facing the wall and could not identify his attackers. He had claimed that the dark-skinned man had also beaten him, but this man was not arraigned or summoned as a witness by both prosecution and defence.

The magistrate took the man's inability to visually identify who had been beating him as leaving open the possibility that the injuries had been inflicted by the unidentified man.

The onus of proof lay with the prosecution and inferences drawn from circumstantial evidence must be clear and unequivocal, noted the court. In this case, no footage showed the accused beating Seisun and neither was there any blood spatter at the scene.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera upheld the self-defence argument and acquitted the accused, explaining that he description of the thief's ferocity had led the court to believe that the the men had perceived the threat to be unjust, grave and inevitable.