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2 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2016 News Courtroom lunge at magistrate earns Pasqualino Cefai two years in jail MATTHEW AGIUS GOZITAN hardman Pasquali- no Cefai has been jailed for 28 months in connection with a courtroom fracas during which he had threatened a magistrate and attacked several police offic- ers. Three RIU units and district police officers had to intervene in Magistrate (now judge) Mir- iam Hayman's courtroom after Pasqualino Cefai, 39, of Zebbug, Gozo, lunged at the magistrate in October 2014. A police officer was slightly injured in the ensu- ing struggle. Magistrate Audrey Demicoli, hearing evidence about the fra- cas, was told that on the day in question, Cefai had a sitting be- fore Magistrate Hayman. When the case was called and his law- yer did not appear, having been delayed by a sitting in a different courtroom, Magistrate Hayman decided to continue hearing evi- dence in the lawyer's absence. Magistrate Hayman had testi- fied in these proceedings, telling the court that the fracas was trig- gered when, after Cefai repeat- edly ignored her warnings to stop shouting, she had declared him to be in contempt of court. Police inspector Johann Fenech testified that he had just left the courtroom to call a witness. He described how, upon returning to the hall, he had found the heav- ily built Cefai to have practically climbed on to the magistrate's platform, from where he was hurling threats and using ob- scene language in her regard. He would "find her outside and pay her back," Cefai promised. The inspector's attempts to calm Cefai had the opposite ef- fect, leaving Fenech and three police officers desperately try- ing to restrain the now doubly- enraged man. Cefai tore off his suit jacket and grabbed Inspector Fenech by the throat, ripping his tie, before proceeding to threaten the officer with death and harm to his loved ones. Hayman had then ordered Ce- fai's arrest. After a struggle, he was hand- cuffed and led away to the court lock-up, where after being brief ly calmed down he erupted into vi- olence once more, slightly injur- ing an officer with his still-cuffed hands. Whilst in the police lock- up, Cefai started banging his head against lockers and smashed a mirror, injuring himself. As a result of the courtroom commotion, Cefai had been charged with 10 offences, in- cluding assaulting and threaten- ing a magistrate, assaulting and threatening a public servant, violently resisting a public serv- ant in the execution of his duties, causing slight injuries to a police officer, disobeying a lawful order made by a police officer, volun- tarily causing damage to a court window, assaulting a magistrate and police officers, disturbing the public peace, using blasphe- mous language and being a re- cidivist. Cefai did not respond to any questions during his interroga- tion and chose not to testify in his defence. His lawyer, Edward Gatt, had explained that his cli- ent had taken great offence at the trial continuing in his defence counsel's absence and had felt antagonised, adding that Ce- fai had admitted to him that he should not have reacted the way he did. In her sentence on the mat- ter, Magistrate Audrey Demicoli agreed that the accused had a right to be assisted by the lawyer of his choice, but pointed out that he was not entitled to exercise this right through aggression, threats and insults. The court however took this factor into consideration when determining punishment. The court opined that lawyers should reciprocate the court's ef- forts to inform them of sittings by doing their utmost to be pre- sent when their cases are called. Police inspector Darryl Borg prosecuted. Lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo were Ce- fai's defence counsel. Man jailed for having sex with partner's 14-year old daughter CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The man was arrested and had to be taken to hospital after com- plaining of chest pains. The next day, his partner told the police that her daughter was saying that the man in the footage was not the accused. However, the girl confirmed her initial accusation when speaking to police Inspector Louise Calleja in private. When her mother had dis- covered the films, an argument had broken out between the man and her mother, reported the girl, but this had later sub- sided and the woman and her children had gone back to liv- ing with the accused. She told the Inspector that the acts had taken place over the space of a year and insist- ed that she had been a willing participant. She had lied about the identity of the man because she didn't want him to get into trouble. That would have been "selfish," the girl said, as she "had wanted to do what she did ". The daughter explained that she had other sexual expe- riences with other men before the accused: a youth aged 17 and a boy her age. The girl claimed that she and her mother had been forced into reporting the man to the police by his natural daugh- ter, who insisted on this after falling out with him. She had gone to live with her sister, but intended to seize her father's apartment for her own use, the girl told the court. The accused 's daughter had also threatened to report her father's partner to the police so that her children would be taken away from her and placed in an institution, the 14-year-old girl said. The accused denied the charges, explaining that throughout his five-year rela- tionship with the mother, he often argued with the girl as she was "very strong-willed ". The defence attacked the girl 's credibility, highlighting the fact that she had changed her story more than once. Magistrate Audrey Demi- coli, however held that the girl had said the truth when she had been testif ying, saying that she had clearly lied in the past in order to protect the ac- cused. The girl and her mother had been intimidated by the threats made by the accused 's spiteful daughter, the court ruled. However, in spite of the con- sensual nature of the acts, the court held that the accused had taken advantage of a 13- to 14-year old girl who had only just started to experiment with her sexuality, by convinc- ing her that it was normal to engage in sexual activities with one's mother's partner. Her attempts at protecting the accused were further evidence of how the girl had been cor- rupted by the accused. The man was sentenced to five years imprisonment, the court also issuing a two-year protection order in favour of the mother and the girl. In ad- dition, the man was ordered to pay the costs of the case. Heroin-induced car accident left passenger wheelchair-bound Faisal Mahouachi strayed into opposing lane before crashing into gatepost whilst driving back home from detox, severely injuring his passenger MATTHEW AGIUS 15 years after he caused an ac- cident that left his woman pas- senger brain damaged and un- able to walk, Tunis-born Faisal Mahouachi has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment, after a court declared him responsible for the crash. Mahouachi, who is also await- ing trial for the 2005 murder of male prostitute Simon Grech, had been behind the wheel of his friend Sharon Pace's par- ents' Fiat Bravo on their way back from the Detox centre, both of them having been administered methadone. The car had collided with a gatepost on the right hand side of the road. The Fiat, bought just two years before the accident, had been written off after the crash. Pace had been a passenger at the time as methadone would make her drowsy, and she is now confined to a wheelchair, having suffered brain damage in the im- pact. She is unlikely to work again and has experienced personality changes as a result of the brain injury. Traces of heroin, as well as methadone, were found in sam- ples taken from the Tunisian, implying that he had abused the substance shortly before taking methadone. The defence had ar- gued that Pace had been aware that the accused had been un- der the inf luence of a drug and had tacitly accepted the risks of letting him drive her home, but the court had not accepted this argument, citing the 2015 judge- ment by the First Hall of the Civil Court in Xerri vs Xuereb, which had established that the mere fact of a driver's intoxication did not automatically imply that his pas- sengers were aware of his condi- tion. The absence of characteristic bruising patterns led Mahouachi to also be found guilty of not wearing a seat belt whilst at the wheel. There was little doubt that he had been taking heroin at the time, this having emerged in toxi- cological testing. The defence contested the charge of relapsing, arguing that no police officer had been sum- moned to confirm the authen- ticity of his criminal record. After noting the matching details and ID card num- ber, Magistrate Marse Anne Farrugia held that this had been sufficiently proven however. Passing sentence on the accused, the court pointed out that Mahouachi was a recidivist several times over and had frittered away the many opportu- nities handed to him by the courts to get his life back on track. Conditional discharges, probation orders and a suspended sentence had all failed to impress the need for change in the ac- cused. The court handed Mahouachi two years' imprisonment and disqualified him from driving for one year after his release. He was also ordered to pay the costs of the case. Pasqualino Cefai being escorted by a policeman