The consultant who scanned GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia in the aftermath of an alleged assault on 11 March, 2010 had contacts with his son and daughter before the scan was carried out, the defence said yesterday.
Sandro Chetcuti, a property developer who was kicked out of the GRTU council after the incident, is accused of attempted murder over the incident, as well as of threatening and harassing Mr Farrugia.
Anthony Samuel, a consultant specialist in nuclear medicine at Mater Dei Hospital’s radiology department, examined Mr Farrugia on 22 March, 2010 and carried out a three-phase bone scan. When he testified last year, Dr Samuel said that the scan revealed that Mr Farrugia’s eighth to eleventh ribs on the right sustained fractures due to blunt force trauma.
But the defence questioned Dr Samuel’s testimony over his links to Mr Farrugia’s family, and in later testimony, court-appointed expert Mario Scerri disagreed with his findings, stating that Mr Farrugia sustained only slight injuries, and no fractures – as indicated in the Emergency Department’s report drawn up by Dr Konrad Borg.
Radiologist Malcolm Crockford was subsequently appointed to examine these conflicting reports, and concluded that an X-ray scan showed no fractures and that the three-phase bone scan results could be the result of a number of issues.
Earlier this year, the prosecution asked the court to be allowed to recall Dr Samuel to explain the evidence he had given, but the defence objected, stating that this was not correct procedure. Magistrate Edwina Grima, however, eventually accepted the request, allowing Dr Samuel to testify again yesterday.
Dr Samuel clarified that he did not conclusively link the fractures to the assault by Mr Chetcuti; only that they were the result of blunt trauma which had occurred around four to six weeks before the scan took place.
He noted that three-phase bone scans were often carried out in cases where a fracture is suspected even though none was visible in an X-ray scan. During cross-examination by defence counsel Manwel Mallia, Dr Samuel said that 150 bone scans were carried out over suspected fractures last year: these included seven suspected rib fractures, of which four were confirmed.
But the cross-examination focused more on the links between Dr Samuel, Mr Farrugia’s lawyer son Jan-Karl and his daughter, Marie Claire, and on their communications in the run-up to the bone scan.
When asked, Dr Samuel said that he knew Marie Claire because both were doctors at St Luke’s Hospital; but later admitted to having briefly dated her.
Dr Mallia then brought up mobile phone records which showed that Mr Farrugia’s daughter contacted Dr Samuel five times between 15 March and 23 March, and that Dr Samuel replied once, on the latter date. The lawyer noted that in his previous testimony, Dr Samuel said that he had not contacted members of Mr Farrugia’s family before the bone scan took place: the doctor replied that he could not remember every single detail.
The lawyer also pointed out that in an SMS sent to her father, Marie-Claire said that she asked Dr Samuel to do a special scan on his ribs to check for fractures, adding that there would be no difference in treatment, but would help the court case.
Later on, Dr Mallia noted that while Dr Samuel previously claimed that Mr Farrugia’s son contacted him for an appointment, the doctor had made two calls to Dr Farrugia himself, on 18 March and 22 March. Dr Samuel then said that he may have contacted Mr Farrugia’s son to set up the appointment if a slot suddenly became vacant.
The case resumes on 18 January.