Malta cameraman denied bail after ‘insulting and shoving’ police outside Paceville club
Cameraman is refused bail after allegedly insulting, pushing police officers
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Valletta – A 34-year-old freelance cameraman who has filmed some of Malta’s biggest political rallies and village festas found himself on the wrong side of the lens this week, after magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech refused him bail and remanded him in custody on charges of having insulted and pushed two police officers outside a Paceville nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Prosecutors told the court that the man, whose name is banned from publication until he enters a plea, was stopped at 02:45 on St George’s Road after bouncers flagged him for allegedly trying to re-enter a club from which he had already been escorted out. When two constables requested his ID, the cameraman reportedly replied with a stream of Maltese expletives – “għax qisu jaf kollox, il-pulizija ta’ Malta” – before shoving one officer in the chest and attempting to walk away. Body-cam footage shown in court captures the second officer stepping in, only to be pushed against a glass shop-front. Both officers suffered minor grazes; one was treated for a swollen wrist at Mater Dei.
The incident, barely 200 metres from the neon strip that draws thousands of Maltese teenagers and tourists every weekend, has reopened a raw local debate about respect for the uniform in a country where almost everyone knows a cousin or neighbour in the force.
“Paceville is our testing ground,” Inspector Saviour Baldacchino told journalists outside court. “If we tolerate aggression there, it spreads to village bars, to the festa crowd, to the roadside stops in Żejtun or Rabat. We asked for custody because the message must be zero tolerance.”
Defence lawyer Giannella De Marco countered that her client is the sole breadwinner for his parents in Għaxaq and that his work schedule – shooting weddings, political press conferences and, ironically, police media events – makes him easily identifiable, negating any flight risk. She also claimed the officers did not display badge numbers until after the scuffle, a procedural point the prosecution disputes. Magistrate Frendo Dimech, however, sided with the state, noting “the seriousness of allegedly violent resistance and the need to protect public order”.
Malta’s relationship with its 2,400-strong police corps is uniquely intimate. The force still recruits through village band clubs, and constables traditionally march at the head of summer festas beneath parish banners. Yet the pandemic years frayed goodwill: viral videos of heavy-handed curfew checks in working-class hamlets clashed with accusations of lax enforcement in St Julian’s nightlife blocks. Sunday’s arrest has become a Rorschach test: some see an overzealous judiciary punishing a tipsy cameraman; others see long-overdue push-back against an “I-can-do-what-I-want” culture imported from package-tourism strips.
On Facebook, the popular group “Malta Past & Present” polled 11,000 followers within six hours: 58 % supported the magistrate’s refusal of bail, arguing that “insulting the police is insulting our own family”. The remainder warned against “normalising custodial sentences for words exchanged after three tequilas”, pointing out that convicted fraudsters have walked free pending appeal.
Tourism stakeholders are watching nervously. Paceville’s 42 licensed bars generate an estimated €38 million annually; negative headlines feed rival Mediterranean destinations eager to lure Gen-Z clubbers to Greece or Cyprus. “One ugly clip can undo a €2 million marketing campaign,” one promoter sighed, requesting anonymity because his venue employs several off-duty officers as security.
Back in Għaxaq, the cameraman’s mother told Times of Malta her son had spent Saturday filming a Labour Party activity in Paola before heading north “to unwind”. She produced a stack of press badges showing years of pool coverage for NET TV, One and even the police’s own PR events. “He knows these officers by name,” she insisted. “Something doesn’t add up.”
The man will reappear in court on Friday for plea and, if necessary, a renewed bail application. Until then he remains in Corradino, where, as one officer quipped, “the only camera is the CCTV in the corridor”.
Whatever the eventual verdict, the case has already joined the pantheon of Paceville flashpoints that Maltese families argue over Sunday lunch – a cautionary tale that in a nation smaller than most cities, the line between who films and who is filmed can vanish in the time it takes to hurl a curse at a uniform.
