A man who was convicted of human trafficking and exploiting and ill-treating a carer has been spared a two-year jail term on appeal.

Harish Daswani, 43, was prosecuted six years ago after the Indonesian woman  whom he had employed through a recruitment agency in Singapore as live-in carer for his father fled the family home, telling police how she had been exploited and abused.

The alleged victim had travelled to Malta on June 6, 2013. She was met at the airport by Daswani and his wife, who paid flight expenses and promised to pay the woman a monthly salary of €770, starting from the seventh month of her employment.

Yet, just over a year later, on June 8, 2014, the carer fled the family home, reporting to police how she had suffered physical violence and insults at the hands of her employer, besides claiming to have worked long hours without a day off and without being paid.

In November 2019, Daswani, who had an otherwise clean conduct sheet, was declared guilty of human trafficking and of causing the victim to fear violence, landing a two-year effective jail term and a €5,000 fine. 

He appealed on various grounds, his lawyer claiming, by way of a preliminary plea, that the alleged criminal behaviour did not fall within the time-frame envisaged by the charge sheet. The charges referred to those acts which had allegedly taken place “on 8th June 2014 and in the preceding months,” thus implying that the applicable term was between 8th June 2013 and 8th June 2014. Since the carer had travelled to Malta on June 6, 2013, after her recruitment had been finalised, that meant that certain essential elements of the offence of human trafficking fell beyond the time frame set out in the charge sheet.

Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera observed that arrangements by the appellant for the alleged victim to come in Malta were prior to the time frame in the charge sheet. For the purposes of the offence of human trafficking, the court considered that the 'behaviour which facilitates the entry into, transit through, residence in, or exit from the territory of any country,” had not taken place within that time period and thus the appellant could not have been found guilty of that offence.

Moreover, the appellant argued that the first court had wrongly discarded his statement given to the police, since he had not been assisted by a lawyer at the time. The appellant had never contested the validity of his own statement, stressing the credibility of his version which had been given prior to any disclosure of evidence by the police and without a lawyer to assist him during interrogation.

The Court of Appeal also upheld that argument, declaring that the appellant’s statement was to be considered as evidence in his regard and acquitting him.