A 46-year-old man was remanded in custody on Thursday after pleading not guilty to sexually abusing two young teenage girls who lived in his same block of apartments and who spent time at his place.

The man, whose name cannot be published by court order, sexually abused the two children on and before February 2019. The victims, whose names are also banned from publication, were 13 and 14 years old at the time of the abuse.

Police inspector Roxanne Tabone told Magistrate Rachel Montebello that the police were alerted to the abuse by the government agency for social welfare services, Appoġġ, following the receipt of anonymous letters alleging that the alleged victims had been sexually abused by the accused over a period of time. The two victims lived in a flat above his.

Police investigations revealed that the accused committed sexual acts against their will, including touching their breasts and private parts over their clothes and often stripped naked in their presence.

After obtaining the victims’ versions, the police arrested the man on Wednesday.

He was charged with defiling the girls, committing sexual acts with the two minors, subjecting them to physical intimacy and committing acts that offended public morals. The man who in court could not recall his home address, pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him.

Defence lawyers Matthew Xuereb and Jose Herrera argued that their client was not informed of the details which led to his arrest. They insisted that he was not given full disclosure, as required by law, as the victims’ declarations were not passed on to their client at the time of his arrest. They said that this rendered the arrest illegal.

Lawyer Darlene Grima, from the Attorney General’s office, countered that the accused twice refused to consult the lawyer of his choice prior and during his police interrogation.

But Xuereb insisted that the right to legal assistance was “futile” unless accompanied by full disclosure of all evidence the police had in their possession.

Inspector Tabone said she had handwritten notes taken during interviews with the alleged victims and a summary of these notes was explained verbally to the accused while at the police depot.

After hearing submissions, the magistrate ruled that the arrest was legal since it was based on an arrest warrant signed by a magistrate, which also had a detailed application with the claims being made by the alleged victims. A copy of this arrest warrant was handed to the accused at the time of his arrest.

A copy of the victims’ declaration was not an essential document for full disclosure according to law, she said. 

The defence team requested bail for their client, insisting that the alleged crimes with which he is being accused happened more than five years ago, adding that the alleged victims were not minors any longer and that they had moved house since then.

“It is not reasonable that someone is not given bail after so long,” Herrera told the court.

The prosecution strongly objected to the request, saying that although the alleged victims were not minors did not mean they could not be approached to change their versions or in any way play down what had happened.

Magistrate Montebello agreed with the prosecution that there was fear that the accused would tamper with evidence so she turned down the request for bail and the man was escorted to the Corradino Correctional Agency.