No-one stopped to help as a jogger took chase after two men who allegedly assaulted a 62-year-old man in Sliema on Thursday. 

Keith Attard, who enjoys daily walks along the promenade, told Times of Malta of how he chased down and managed to apprehend one man after he heard Louis Spiteri, a fellow jogger, shouting for help on the ground. 

“When I finally caught up to him, I had managed to pin him against a wall and he was struggling. I didn’t have a phone on me and I kept asking other passers-by to call the police,” he said. 

“But no one stopped to help. I think they just thought it was another brawl.”

It was Attard’s own friends who managed to flag down a police car in the area which led to officers finally coming to his aid. 

At around 7am on Thursday, Louis Spiteri was jogging past George Bonello Dupuis Garden in Sliema when one of two men sitting on a bench got up and punched him in the face unprovoked, he said. 

Attard, who was some 50 metres away from the incident when it happened, said that he and a group of friends had heard Spiteri’s cries for help and saw the two men run past them. 

“It was my friend Jonathan who actually turned around to run after them first. So I turned around and started running too, I think that’s when the adrenaline kicked in,” he said. 

“I noticed that they looked suspicious. One of them was shirtless and was running away holding something wrapped in a t-shirt. The other guy had a backpack and he was wearing a green cap as well as a hood.” 

‘I didn’t know he had a knife’ 

After chasing the pair from Qui Si Sana and up to Tower Road towards the shopping district, Attard thought he had lost sight of the pair when he spotted them zipping past a supermarket on High Street. At the crossroads, he finally managed to nab one of the men, dragging him into a driveway and attempting to pin him down.

“He was struggling and I kept telling him to stop but he wouldn't, so I hit him,” Attard continued. 

“He was holding something wrapped in his t-shirt and at the time I didn’t realise he had a knife. In hindsight I could have been stabbed, I hadn’t considered that I was risking my life at that point.” 

Attard said that while holding the alleged attacker down, the man told him that his name was Gory and that he was from Romania. He also claimed that he had been fishing in the area.

“I found that suspicious as well. Fishing without a pole? And he wasn’t even wearing a bathing suit, just trousers and tennis shoes and the black t-shirt wrapped around the knife.” 

After his friends caught up with him, they managed to flag down a police car, after which officers apprehended the man. 

It was when the suspected attacker was in the police car that Attard finally got a look at the knife, which he said looked like a diving knife. 

Attard said that as he’s noticing more violent incidents in Sliema, he’s concerned that not enough is being done to keep people safe. 

“I wasn’t afraid. If I was I wouldn’t have ran after them,” he said. 

“I walk this route every day, now we are a group of men so perhaps we don’t worry too much about it, but people of all ages are out enjoying the promenade at this time.” 

“I really hope these people are brought to justice because it's not fair.” 

“We are just here to exercise, not protect people, so we need to be sure that justice is done and that more effort is made for a more peaceful Sliema.”