The Court of Criminal Appeal has reduced by a year a prison sentence given to a man who had beat up and severely injured his own lawyer, after it found him not guilty of one of the 8 charges he had been initially convicted of.

39-year-old Philip Camilleri, from Marsa, and his late father, also named Philip, had been charged with attacking lawyer Tonio Azzopardi following a disagreement over an €11,600 schedule of deposit from a separate case.

At first instance, the court had been told how, during the afternoon of July 3 2006, the two men had stormed into the lawyer's office, knocking Azzopardi to the ground and then kicking him in the head. Azzopardi told the court that he had suffered approximately 40 blows during the attack, which had left Azzopardi suffering from hearing loss.

Camilleri had been convicted and sentenced to 4 years imprisonment by magistrate Marseanne Farrugia.

The reason behind the attack was that Azzopardi had represented Joyce Camilleri, the mother of the accused, in a prior civil case, which she had won. After the case was concluded, the two men had gone to withdraw funds they had deposited in court and had learned that the funds had in fact been under the lawyer's control.

On the day of the incident, they had called at Azzopardi's office and demanded the money "as it belonged to them." He recounted how, as soon as he had opened his door, the younger man started to shout and then physically attacked him. Philip Camilleri Sr also joined in at that point.

Court appointed medical experts testified that Azzopardi had suffered a perforated eardrum, resulting in hearing impairment.

All this was confirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeal, presided by Mr. Justice Giovanni Grixti.

But the court said that one of the accusations - that the men had exercised a pretended right, had not been proven. Although there was a similarity between that crime and the facts in issue, observed the court, what the accused did to Dr. Azzopardi was to force him to give something that wasn't theirs. They did not illegally take an object which they believed to be theirs and which they had the right to take. The court upheld this ground of the appeal.

"The court agrees that there is nothing illicit in asking for the return of something which a person believes to be his, but when the person in possession of the object refuses...the party is to have recourse to those civil measures which could oblige the possessor to acquiesce."

The judge noted that the argument that it was not a crime to go to a lawyer and ask him to give you back your money, was "very very dangerous." "Whoever has reason to believe that a lawyer is obliged to return money or objects in his possession by reason of his profession should never have recourse to the means adopted by the accused appellant."

The judge, after taking into account the revocation of guilt on the pretended right charge, "as well as the passage of time" reduced the man's 4 year prison term by one year, condemning him to 3 years.

Lawyers Edward Gatt and Veronique Dalli were counsel to Camilleri.