The Court of Criminal Appeal has ruled that an irregularity took place during the trial by jury that had to determine a man’s mental state when he murdered his wife at St Luke’s Hospital almost three years ago, reversing both the jurors’ verdict and the Criminal Court’s decision.

On 21 May last year, a panel of jurors had decided that Anthony Schembri, 61, from Sliema, was not in a state of insanity when he murdered his wife Doris in September 2005.

The trial, known as a trial by jury to determine a plea of insanity, was held because Mr Schembri had pleaded insanity during the criminal proceedings being brought against him.

The jurors were not asked to decide if Mr Schembri was guilty of killing his wife, but rather whether or not he was in the right mental state to know what he was doing that afternoon.

During the trial by jury, psychiatrists David Cassar, Anton Grech and Ethel Felice, appointed as court experts to assess Mr Schembri’s mental condition, said that he was in a state of insanity while he committed the crime.

They said they had examined the case and studied Mr Schembri’s medical history. They said he suffers from chronic paranoid schizophrenia and had been suffering from this condition for a number of months.

As for the Criminal Court’s decision, it had ordered that Mr Schembri’s case file be sent back to the Magistrates’ Court for the compilation of evidence against him to continue.

In Thursday’s ruling, the Court of Criminal Appeal said that an irregularity took place during the trial by jury, and that this could have influenced the jurors’ verdict.

Following a request from the accused for two extracts from his police statements not to be known to jurors, the Criminal Court had only agreed to make the first extract known to jurors.

These related to an incident between Mr Schembri and his wife, dating back to 1991. The first extract shows that the accused had told the police that he had hurt his wife with a knife after she had made fun of him.

The second extract, on the other hand, brings out the fact that the court had found that Mr Schembri was not in a healthy mental state when he hurt his wife.

The Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the Criminal Court, presided over by Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, gave the wrong reasons for failing to make the first extract known to jurors.

The Court ruled that the prima facie evidence of the 1991 proceedings were irrelevant to the 2005 incident.

The court also made reference to the prosecuting lawyer’s replica, in which he made reference to the 1991 incident twice, and that this allowed jurors to speculate.

As a result, the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the case be reversed to what it was before the trial by jury to determine a plea of insanity was held, thus declaring null both the jurors’ verdict and the Criminal Court’s judgement.

Dr Anglu Farrugia and Dr Edward Gatt are Mr Schembri’s legal representatives.