The compilation of evidence against 68-year-old Alexander Baldacchino, who is accused of projecting unlicensed pornographic material at the City Lights Cinema in St John’s Street, Valletta, yesterday continued before Magistrate Edwina Grima.

Although people in the court room could be seen smirking and laughing quietly to themselves as the hearing was going on, the penalties for showing unlicensed pornographic material are quiet serious, and if found guilty the accused could face up to two years behind bars.

Mr Baldacchino, who told the police that he has been running the City Lights Cinema for over 20 years, was arraigned in court over the same charges in 2009, but the case against him is still pending.

Prosecuting Police Inspector James Grech told the court that Mr Baldacchino showed both soft and hard porn videos in a run-down cinema with the intent of making money.

He would charge clients a nominal entrance fee of €4, allowing them to stay and watch as many videos as they liked during the day. Clients who wished to leave the cinema and return later would be exempted from paying the entrance fee again, the Inspector commented.

Inspector Grech said that on 7 October 2010, he entered the cinema to check what was being shown and there he met Francis Grech, who, looking rather flustered, said that he was Mr Baldacchino’s manager and that he would take care of the running of the cinema whenever the accused was busy.

He said that the cinema was busier in the morning than it is during the night and no one under the age of 18 would be allowed in, because some of the videos that were showed contained soft pornographic material. Mr Grech told him that the accused is also the proprietor of the cinema, and lived in a room adjacent to where the films were shown.

There was nothing showing at the time, Inspector Grech said, so he left.

However, he later continued dwelling on the City Lights Cinema, and had a hunch that they were showing unlicensed porn videos. So he asked a colleague of his when he got back to Valletta Police Station, Police Sergeant Glenn Carabott, to go and check out the cinema again.

Testifying, Sergeant Carabott said that when he entered the building, he noticed about 10 people in the hall, but the screen on which a film was being projected suddenly became blank.

Mr Grech then came to greet Sergeant Carabott, who told him that the cinema had a right to show soft-porn films. However, after checking the place out, the Police Sergeant noticed that there was a switchbox near the screen.

When the Police Sergeant flicked the switch, a hard porn movie started showing, entitled Lost Connection, and when he re-flicked the switch, a soft porn video would start showing.

Panicking, Mr Grech said that most of the videos which the City Lights Cinema would show were licensed, but Mr Baldacchino had just sent some videos to the Broadcasting Authority for the Censorship Board to license them.

However, the police later found that the City Lights Cinema did not even have a permit to shown licensed porn videos, which is why they arraigned Mr Balcacchino, who is being defended in court by lawyer Ivan Gatt.