A man who was jailed for six months for slightly injuring a woman had the term reduced to 52 days on appeal after it was established that the police had quoted the wrong law when charging him.

Youssef Mbarrek, 47, from Algeria had been jailed on March 10 for slightly hurting his former partner during a domestic fight, threatening her and refusing to give his particulars to the police last August in St Paul's Bay.

Mr Mbarrek argued in his appeal that he could not have been found guilty of the charge of threatening the woman under the law invoked by the police and quoted various judgments handed down by the Magistrates' Courts.

The police had charged him under article 251 (b), which is about "causing others to fear that violence will be used against them". This law says that the person will be guilty of that crime "if he knows or ought to know that his course of conduct will cause the other so to fear on each of those occasions... "

Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano ruled that since this case dealt with one incident, although protracted over a number of hours, one could not speak of a "course of conduct", which would imply more than one incident where he had threatened her.

Furthermore, the same law also dealt with a threat of violence that might occur in the future and not violence that had already been committed.

Unfortunately the police, in almost every case involving physical or moral violence, were charging people under Article 251 (b) which indicated that they had still not understood the true meaning of this particular law, the Chief Justice said.

Mr Mbarrek also appealed on the point that the Magistrates' Court had not taken into consideration the fact that he was a first-time offender. He also quoted other judgments on similar cases where suspended jail terms had been handed down.

On this point, the Chief Justice said the rule in cases of physical and moral violence should be effective imprisonment, especially where domestic violence was involved.

However, if the lower courts opted not to follow such sentencing policy, there was nothing the Appeal Court could do in the absence of an appeal by the Attorney General.

But he could not find Mr Mbarrek guilty of the second charge, that of threatening his former partner, given the article of the law he had been charged under. He, therefore, reduced the jail term.