A female detention officer, sleeping topless in her bed, was rudely awakened by four male police officers who barged into her home, bound her hands and sat her down in her state of near-nudity, only to discover later they had raided the wrong place. 

Charlotte Casha, the 34-year-old, whose sleep was transformed into the “worst nightmare,” is now suing the State and the Police Commissioner over the arbitrary arrest and the degrading treatment she experienced at the hands of the all-male arresting team.

The incident happened in Triq l-Isqof Francis Baldacchino, Marsa on August 12 around 6am when four officers from the police Special Intervention Unit (SIU) made their way up to a penthouse in a Marsa block while assisting the Vice Squad and the Crime Investigation Department in a series of raids taking place in various areas in connection with a human trafficking investigation. 

With one strong blow, the officers forced open the penthouse door ripping it out of its place.

Two of the search party barged into the bedroom where the occupant slept in her underwear and topless. 

Swiftly, without uttering a single word, they unceremoniously marched her from her bed, turned her facing the wall and forcefully secured her hands with tie clips. 

Then they escorted her into the living area, dumped her on a chair and left her bewildered, in her state of undress.

And that was how she remained for a good 20 minutes, in the presence of four male policemen. 

No one offered to bring her a T-shirt or at least a towel to cover herself with, she said in her protest.

No one asked for her name or showed her any arrest warrant. Nor did anyone inform her of her legal rights as an arrested person. 

The woman sat through her minutes-long ordeal with no explanation offered until two higher-ranked officers, one of them a female, entered the scene. 

They instructed the SIU team to leave and to remove the hand bondages. 

The woman was informed she was no longer under arrest. 

Before exiting the apartment, the officers asked her for her personal details. 

A “very big mistake” had evidently been committed. 

Police unit says nothing wrong was committed

The alleged victim of that mistake later discovered that police had been targeting a suspect who lived in the apartment below her penthouse. The arrest warrant they were meant to execute that day named that suspect.

But the police did not bother to ask the woman for her personal details right at the start and only did so when it was far too late. 

The next day, Casha filed a criminal complaint at the police Professional Standards Unit about the episode which left her badly shaken. 

But it proved futile.

Not only was the corps unwilling to shoulder responsibility for the “deplorable” incident, but they insisted “nothing irregular” had been committed. 

The Professional Standards Unit came up with the “absurd pretext” that the arresting officers were acting on some form of “reasonable suspicion” when forcing their way into the woman's residence. 

What reasonable suspicion could ever justify the humiliation and disrespect they had shown towards a person’s dignity, the woman asked in her application filed on Monday before the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction. 

Even if such "suspicion" truly existed, none of the arresting officers bothered to follow the basic rules and safeguards which the law affords arrested persons.

Moreover, the excessive use of force was certainly not justified. 

Her apartment door was literally ripped off, she was forced against the bedroom wall and even worse, her hands were bound with tie clips rather than normal handcuffs. 

Had the police asked for her personal details at the very start, the traumatic experience could have been far less serious. 

The woman has now resorted to the constitutional courts, claiming that the ordeal amounted to a breach of her fundamental rights to protection against arbitrary arrest and degrading treatment. 

Ever since that experience, she was forced to quit her job as a detention officer, where she worked with vulnerable persons and detainees suffering mental issues. 

But the emotional and psychological trauma she suffered had rendered her “unfit to work.”

She could no longer perform her specialised duties. 

The woman is requesting the court to declare the State Advocate and the Police Commissioner responsible for the rights’ breach and order them to pay pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages.

She is also requesting the court to take any further measures deemed appropriate to safeguard the applicant’s fundamental rights. 

Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi, Jacob Magri and David Chetcuti Dimech signed the application.