Cabinet Secretary Ryan Spagnol was cleared of all drink-driving charges after the Appeals Court questioned the police’s correction of the breathalyser timestamp by pen.
Spagnol had appealed a May 2024 judgment where he had been fined €1,800 and handed down a six-month driving ban. He had already been acquitted of public drunkenness by the first court.
Spagnol was stopped during a routine police road check in the early hours of 22 December 2023, along Triq tal-Barrani in Żejtun.
Officers testified that his eyes appeared red and that his behaviour suggested he may have been under the influence of alcohol.
A breathalyser test conducted at 1:49am indicated he was twice over the legal alcohol limit.
The court however heard that the automated receipt generated by the police breathalyser device displayed incorrect timestamps. A police sergeant corrected these times by hand using a ballpoint pen. The defence argued that this discrepancy suggested the machine was not properly calibrated.
In her judgment, Judge Natasha Galea Sciberras agreed that such technical errors cast a shadow over the prosecution’s evidence, saying that the first court “could not legally and reasonably rely on those results” to find guilt.
The prosecution had argued that Spagnol was “unfit to drive” regardless of the breathalyser result, relying on a police officer’s observation that he had “reddened eyes” and “behaviour that made police suspect that Spagnol might have been under the effects of alcohol”.
However, Spagnol testified that his appearance was due to exhaustion after a long workday and a bout of the flu.
He presented chat logs with his mother and his brother, who is a pharmacist, discussing the medication he was taking at the time.
The Court of Appeal found that such physical signs were insufficient to establish intoxication beyond reasonable doubt. The court also noted the absence of any evidence of reckless or dangerous driving.
Spagnol testified that when he asked officers whether his driving had been erratic, he was told: “No, no, friend… we test randomly.”
Spagnol was therefore acquitted of all charges.
Inspector Rachel Aquilina prosecuted.
