A homeless man who initially pleaded guilty to molesting a passer-by in Valletta had his guilty plea reversed by a magistrate after he repeatedly insisted he had done nothing wrong.
“I did not touch anyone! What justice is this? Must I go to jail?” Roderick Brincat, 36, asked after he registered an admission.
Brincat regularly begs for alms at Valletta’s City Gate, a court was told, and although many people complained about him, most were reluctant to follow up reports by testifying in court.
Police had warned the man to desist in his ways, but recently the situation escalated.
In May, a pedestrian ended up slightly injured following an incident with the beggar on Nelson Avenue, Floriana.
Then in mid-July, Brincat insulted an elderly pedestrian who declined a request for €20, prosecuting inspector Gabriel Micallef alleged.
Three weeks later, Brincat spotted the same passer-by and let off a tirade of insults.
“He sits at City Gate. You cannot help go past him,” said the prosecutor.
The suspect was arrested and escorted to court on Friday, facing a raft of charges which ranged from slight injuries and insults and threats to offending public morals, harassing his victims, breaching the public peace and leading a vagrant and idle life as well as molesting passersby by begging for alms.
He pleaded guilty, nodding and moving restlessly in the dock.
But when granted time to consult his legal aid lawyer so as to reconsider his plea, the man began to complain to his lawyer.
He refused to accept the possibility that he might end up in jail and as he became increasingly agitated, his voice rose up a notch, reaching the magistrate seated at the bench.
“I need to eat and go to the toilet like everyone else. Unless I eat, my stomach will shrink and I’ll end up in hospital on a drip… I did not harm anyone. I only ask for help. That’s different. I don’t deserve this…It’s not right,” argued the accused.
The man said he could seek refuge at a church-run shelter.
“Or I could go to Caritas? I called them last week, asking them to take me in.”
In light of the man’s repeated protestations that he “did nothing wrong,” Magistrate Gabriella Vella minuted a not-guilty plea, explaining that she could not accept his previous admission.
A request for bail was objected to not only because the accused had no fixed residence but also because civilians were still to testify.
The court turned down the request, stating that the social shelter mentioned by the accused could not be considered as a fixed address for bail purposes.
Inspector Gabriel Micallef prosecuted.