Defence lambasts police failure to investigate claims of indecent assault, violent security staff at Havana

Defence lawyers have raised questions about police handling of a case in which a woman who was grabbed by the throat and thrown down a flight of steps by bouncers at a Paceville nightclub in 2015, ended up being charged with assaulting police officers, whilst the heavy-handed security staff were not questioned by police.

Semira Tabone Grech's voice wavered at times as she testified before magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona in a case where she and a male companion stand accused of violently resisting arrest, disobeying lawful police orders, insulting, threatening and slightly injuring a number of police officers as well as breaching the peace.

The court was told how on 7 November 2015, the woman had been harassed by one of the club's patrons as she waited at the bar inside the Havana nightclub. But when she complained, she was assaulted by club security, she said. “The security guard grabbed me by the neck and threw me down the stairs.” Outside the club, four female police officers lost no time in arresting the timid and slightly-built woman, who said she had been in the grip of an anxiety attack at the time.

Tabone Grech alleged that whilst she was in the police car, the two escorting female police constables had manhandled her, mocked the handcuffed woman's inability to speak Maltese well and refused to put her seatbelt on. They had also failed to give her a reason for her arrest, she said.

Asked in court today whether she had much to drink that night, she said that at that point she had “only drunk two glasses of champagne and a glass of wine.”

She denied assaulting or biting the officers. “I absolutely did not touch the police. I was in a state of panic and the situation was made worse by the officers putting all their weight on me,” the woman said.

Her fiancé and co-accused Mohammed Zawia Abdussalam Bheeh also took the witness stand this morning.

The court asked the man what his reaction to being removed from the nightclub had been. “I went outside by myself and when I did, I see Semira on the floor and four policewoman around her. I came to explain to the police. They didn't try to listen to us. She was crying because she has very bad anxiety but no one listened to us. “

Of the man who had allegedly harassed the girl inside the club, he said he “went up to him and said 'don't touch' and I went to get security.”

“When I went to speak to the security guard, I saw another security guard taking Semira outside.” Bheeh denied insulting the police officers.

“I didn't even speak to the normal guy on the stairs, I wouldn't speak badly to the police.” He was escorted to the police station in a different car, he said, alleging that the officers beat him. “I was trying to speak to him but he didn't listen to me...he was hitting me on my ankle and my shoulder. He was hitting me and hitting me. I was bruised.”

“I was just trying to tell them that she's my fiancée. I was upset but I didn't shout or touch them. They arrested me just like that.”

The accused woman's mother, Sara Grech took the witness stand to exhibit a number of photographs of her daughter's injuries, which she had taken herself.

In his closing submissions, prosecuting police inspector Elton Taliana stressed that “the incident, in truth, started inside Havana.” The two accused had a violent incident with the club security and her injuries could have been caused by this. She had told the court that she had been thrown down the stairs, he reminded.

“You can imagine the pressure on police officers in Paceville. Instead of being told what had happened, the officers say that they had been verbally abused and had suffered some injuries...in the circumstances, I remind that they weren't in Gudja village square, this was Paceville at 1:00am - there is a lot of pressure. The police must maintain order and when things escalate the police must intervene,” the inspector said, adding that the police could not be held responsible for miscommunications.

In his closing arguments, lawyer Vince Micallef, who is defending the accused together with lawyer Stefanie Abela, said there was no reason to disbelieve the woman's account and that of her fiancé, as their testimony was near-identical. “We have a young man and woman having a drink at a bar and a third party comes to harass her in the most inappropriate manner. What happened? Look at my client's demeanour. He goes for protection to the security, in the meantime she is tossed outside.”

The lawyer expressed surprise that no charges had been pressed against anyone else, adding that police officers had been evasive when asked in cross examination if anyone had been arrested for the indecent assault.

“Even the police had testified that there had been a disturbance involving the security guards…I ask where are the security guards in these proceedings? There is no testimony. The guards were never arraigned and neither had any of the police officers at the scene bothered to take down their details.

“One musn't forget: I'm having a drink with my wife, a man acts indecently towards her, so I go to get security, only to return to find her surrounded by bouncers, one of whom grabs her by the throat and throws her down the stairs...and the police, instead of assisting me or hearing those involved choose, despite her anxious state, to proceed to handcuff her. Is she so dangerous that she needed all this force in the circumstances?”

“A club full of security guards, why did none of them testify? The best evidence would be CCTV. Where is the CCTV footage to prove that my client abused the bouncers or the police?”

In the absence of this evidence, the charges could not stand, the lawyer submitted. “We are only required to prove innocence up to the grade of probability. Did we? I submit that we have.”

The case continues in June.