A man has been cleared of harassing his wife after a court concluded that while he took photos and recordings of her, she had done the same thing to him and that the separating couple were given to squabbling.

The case revolved around several incidents reported by the woman in November 2021, claiming that her husband was harassing her by taking audio recordings and videos of her.

Those recordings were done against the backdrop of the couple’s personal separation. The man subsequently testified that he had in fact been acting upon the advice of his lawyers.

He saved those recordings and photos so as to protect his position pending separation proceedings, insisting that all had been done in places where he normally met his estranged wife, including inside their matrimonial home.

He had reacted to his wife’s own abusive behaviour and recorded his wife for the sake of protecting himself against her false accusations, the man claimed.

When delivering judgment the court, presided over by Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit, did not delve into that argument put forward by the accused.

Although there were court decisions upholding such a practice, this court feared that this could give rise to abuse.  Such recordings should only be allowed when the party’s safety or life needed to be protected, said Magistrate Stafrace Zammit.

Turning to the case at hand, the court said that it had observed the parties’ behaviour throughout the proceedings.

The woman was “highly emotional” while her husband pondered at length over his actions.

When two such “profoundly divergent personalities” clashed in a personal separation, there were bound to be conflicts.

The accused’s actions may very well have been avoided, observed the court.

The issue was whether those actions amounted to harassment in terms of article 251A of the Criminal Code.

Citing legal doctrine, the court said that there had to be a course of conduct and that “it is that course of conduct which has to have the quality of amounting to harassment rather than individual instances of conduct.”

Moreover, such conduct was to be “unacceptable and oppressive” in such manner as to create in the alleged victim “a minimum level of alarm or distress.”

In this case, the Attorney General had cited the provision on harassment in its entirety without specifying the particular sub-paragraph applicable to the facts at hand.

Citing jurisprudence, the court observed when a couple goes through personal separation there are bound to be disagreements and something done by one of the parties may easily be misinterpreted or blown out of proportion by the other party.

One of the incidents alleged by the victim in this case was confirmed by the accused but each gave a different version because each viewed the matter from his or her own perspective, rather than objectively.

For instance, the woman said that the accused was harassing her by recording her.

But then she too produced voice recordings to prove the tone of voice when addressing her and footage of one of the couple’s arguments.

She also came up with undated screenshots, all proving “nothing but a couple squabbling over trivialities.”

The accused, on the other hand, presented footage showing his alleged victim taking photos of his car, with a smile on her face.

The woman said that she was “unhappy and emotionally shattered.”

However she needed to realize that if such squabbling continued, it would only make matters worse especially for the parties’ minor children who were likely to be negatively affected if the parents persisted in this way, observed the court.

Without in any way implying that the alleged victim had provoked the accused’s actions, the court concluded that the allegations did not fall within the parameters of the crime of harassment, thus pronouncing an acquittal.

Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Jacob Magri were defence counsel.