A shopkeeper and his two sons today were acquitted of grievously injuring a man whom they caught trying to shoplift from their store in Zejtun twice. 

Joseph Micallef, 57 and his sons Clydon, 30, and Luke,26, were also charged with the illegal arrest and destruction of evidence after CCTV footage capturing the incident was allegedly "erased by mistake".

In December 2012, the police had received a phone call from the shop owner reporting that Anthony Seisun had been caught while trying to steal whisky bottles from GM Discount Store.

Police officers who went to the story arrested the thief at the scene after finding two bottles of whisky in the lining of a jacket he was wearing.

Mr Seisun, who was subsequently convicted of theft, was certified as having suffered a cut to the cartilage of his right ear, needing stitches

Mr Seisun claimed he had been attacked by the three men and an unidentified dark-skinned man whilst he had been browsing the spirits section.

The doctor who had treated him testified that Mr Seisun had suffered bruising to his forehead, cheeks and lower back. The injuries suggested a beating, concluded the doctor.

Taking the witness stand, the father said he acted in self-defence as he had feared that the thief could have been carrying a concealed weapon.

He explained the man's bloodstained face by claiming that the thief had bumped his own head against the sharp-edged metal shelving in a bid to escape. 

Mr Micallef handed the police a CCTV recording of the first shoplifting incident. Footage of the second incident and the alleged beating, however, had been “erased by mistake”.

Luke Micallef told the police that, while driving to his girlfriend's house, the CD containing a copy of the CCTV footage of the second incident had slipped off his dashboard and out of the car window. He had not delivered it to the police immediately as he “had no idea that it would be so important,” he claimed.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera held this account to be truthful, noting that Mr Seisun had initially claimed to have been beaten by Luke and Clydon Micallef, but had then said that he had been facing the wall and could not identify his attackers. He had claimed that the dark-skinned man had also beaten him, but this man was not arraigned or summoned as a witness by both the prosecution and defence.

The court therefore upheld the self-defence argument and acquitted the accused.