Police commissioner applicant Mary Muscat said on Sunday that she had been authoritised to sit for her law course and did so while still performing her police work.

The lawyer and former police inspector was reacting to media reports claiming that a number of police officers had skived off from police work to attend lectures.

The issue was raised in a report in The Malta Independent on Sunday, which said that different factions backing different applicants were trying to damage their opponents. The newspaper reported that those referred to in the media reports include some of those who have applied for the post of police commissioner.

Sources told this newspaper, that a policy was introduced in the 1990s allowing officers to sit for a university course. The policy was later scrapped.

In a Facebook post, Muscat said, "For the record, I did my BA. NP. LLD in the regular manner, between 1999 and 2005 - through a sponsorship offered by Home Affairs, initiated during Alfred Sant's two year police reform (96-98). There's a paper trail at the office of the Notary of Government that journalists can check - right down to the general hypothec signed on my property."

Muscat added that she had still carried out her "copious police work along the way, appeared in court in full respect of procedures and deadlines and was lecturing without pay the evening BA Hons Criminology course offered by the Institute of Criminology at University."

Again, she said, "there are records at university that show that i wasn't getting paid for it. And I was lecturing in Crime Prevention and Community Policing and supervising dissertations on these subjects way back when community policing was still unheard of within the Police."

"That's why I commented that all hell would break loose once the selection process started. Now you know why i was seriously reluctant to apply," she said.

Muscat had warned on Indepth that the appointment of a new police commissioner should not become "a public spectacle."