A police sergeant has been charged with falsely reporting her estranged partner for defiling their daughter years ago, after the man was cleared of criminal wrongdoing and challenged the police commissioner to prosecute his ex.
The 38-year-old policewoman, whose name cannot be published by court order, was charged on Wednesday under summons after her former partner staged a legal battle to prove his innocence and subsequently sought criminal action against the person who had triggered criminal charges in his regard.
It all started in 2016 when the officer, who is the mother of the minor and at the time a member of the police corps in the rank of constable, reported that her estranged partner had shown a pornographic video to their daughter.
She said that the first time that happened was in 2009 when the girl was just four years old.
The video was still stored on the father’s mobile phone gallery in 2015 and seen by the minor when she was allowed to use her father’s Samsung phone, the mother had claimed.
In March 2018, the father was cleared of all criminal allegations by a Magistrates’ Court which observed that the story about the indecent footage had been made up by the girl’s mother.
Then-magistrate Audrey Demicoli had concluded that the girl was not telling the truth but was repeating a story told to her by adults.
Moreover, evidence showed that the father had bought the phone after 2009 and that that Samsung model was not even yet manufactured at the time when the girl claimed that she had seen the footage on her father’s phone.
Judgment triggers criminal charges against the woman
However, while clearing the father, the court did not expressly order the police commissioner to investigate the mother and possibly press charges in her regard.
When the father filed a criminal complaint asking for such an investigation, the police said that they could not find any report filed by his ex about the alleged defilement.
So they could not charge her with making a false report.
The Attorney General’s advice on the way forward was sought.
Then-AG Peter Grech advised the police that no criminal action could be taken against the mother.
But the father persevered.
Assisted by his lawyer Alfred Abela, the man filed challenge proceedings against the police commissioner to prosecute the mother who was still a member of the corps.
Magistrate Nadine Lia, presiding over the challenge proceedings, upheld the father’s request and ordered the police commissioner to take criminal action against the mother.
That judgment finally triggered criminal charges against the woman - still a member of the corps and since promoted to the rank of sergeant - for having falsely reported her ex and falsely testified against him in the defilement case concerning the couple’s daughter.
On Wednesday, the woman pleaded not guilty.
Superintendent Graziella Muscat gave an overview of the events leading up to the hearing.
The accused had insisted that she had only accompanied her minor daughter when making the report about the alleged pornographic material and had spoken to Inspector Joseph Busuttil from the vice-squad about her concerns.
She insisted that she had only heard her daughter’s version when the child recounted it to the police.
“She had only done her duties as a mother and felt she was being punished only because she wore the [police] uniform,” the accused had said, wrapping up her statement to police.
As the first hearing drew to a close, defence lawyer Albert Zerafa requested a ban on the accused’s name in view of the daughter.
The father, present in court and legally assisted, promptly quipped that the daughter was no longer a minor.
The court, presided over by Magistrate Ian Farrugia, upheld the request and ordered a ban on the accused’s name “in homage to the presumption of innocence”.
The case continues.
Lawyer Albert Zerafa is defence counsel. Lawyers Alfred Abela and René Darmanin are assisting the father as parte civile.