Police inspector's contempt convictions revoked

An appeals court has revoked two contempt of court convictions against a police inspector.

Police Inspector Michael Mallia had been fined €500 when he did not turn up for a court case, but it later turned out that , due to a bureaucratic glitch, the court, presided by Magistrate Silvio Meli, had not been told that the inspector was no longer the prosecutor.

Inspector Mallia was also fined €200 after he failed to list the article numbers in a set of charges in an arraignment.

The appeals court said that neither case could be described as contempt of court.