Magistrate says lawyers need training on domestic violence cases

Lawyers need training on domestic violence issues, a court has said, as it denied bail to a man accused of sending threatening letters texts to his girlfriend, pretending to be someone else.

Inspector Jonathan Ransley arraigned Shaun Ray Belli, 27, from Fgura before magistrate Joe Mifsud yesterday morning, accusing him of stalking, harassing and threatening his girlfriend and filing a false police report.

The court was told how Belli had for some reason, allegedly sent threatening texts and letters to his girlfriend pretending to be someone else, in the hope of getting her to go live with him. The precise content of the letters was not disclosed in court yesterday.

Inspector Ransley explained how anonymous threatening letters were being sent to the woman. It emerged that the letters were being sent by the accused, to the woman with whom he is a relationship. “He had gone with her to file the police report,” added the inspector.

The man pleaded not guilty and bail was requested.

Belli’s lawyer David Gatt said that the woman and the accused were in a relationship and lived together until the arraignment. “In fact, there was no threat to this victim,” said the lawyer.

Magistrate Joe Mifsud had no truck with this argument however, saying that the “police can’t waste time on fake crimes, this is a waste of the court’s and everyone’s time. We can’t carry on allowing this playing with peoples’ emotions to go on.”

“In this case, the man was bluffing,” Gatt went on. Saying he was sending her messages, pretending to be an inexistent person to accept to go live with him. “It’s just a trick of love,” said the lawyer.

The magistrate disagreed, however, saying that emotional violence was in some ways worse than physical violence. “A blow heals with care and time, but where there is emotional violence this takes a much longer time to heal,” said the magistrate. “It’s not fair. There are people suffering.”

Gatt submitted that this was no reason to deny bail.

Inspector Ransley continued, however, saying that the man was also sending her alarming text messages.

The police had questioned both man and woman and found that their versions didn’t match. The police had mobile phone data proving his guilt, he said.

“He came to the station with her,” said the inspector, underlining the lengths the man had gone to to deceive his partner.

Unhappy with the way the defence had made its submissions, the court remarked that there needed to be more training on dealing with cases of violence.

Bail was denied.