A man who was sentenced to 32 years in prison for attempted murder has had his prison term reduced to 20 years on appeal.

Paul Borg, 68, was found guilty of attempted murder by a jury and was sentenced to a 32-year imprisonment term in December 2024. He was convicted of attempting to kill Mario Grech, his neighbour's father, and of seriously injuring him in a previous incident that happened a year prior.

With the exception of inflicting wilful damage to third-party property, he was found guilty on all charges. The jury voted 8-1 on the attempted murder conviction.

This incident occurred against a backdrop of an ongoing dispute between the neighbour, namely the appellant and Norbert Grech, the son of Mario Grech.

On Wednesday, the Court of Criminal Appeal confirmed the jury's verdict finding the appellant guilty on the fourth and fifth counts of the indictment, while varying the appealed sentence by revoking the jury's verdict relating to the first and third counts of the indictment.

After reviewing all the acts of the case, the Court considered the appellant's grievances, particularly those concerning the alleged applicability of the timing and admissibility of preliminary objections, and the rejection of a request for the appointment of a further expert during the jury trial.

The court found that the defence had raised the res judicata plea at an unjustifiably late stage. Res judicata is a legal principle that stops the same parties from re-litigating a case. Furthermore, the judgement relied upon by the defence had not yet acquired the force of res judicata, as it was still subject to appeal at the relevant time.

The court emphasised that the appellant had been afforded all procedural safeguards available under law and that no irreparable prejudice had been suffered.

One of the grounds of appeal concerned the Criminal Court's refusal to appoint an additional expert to analyse alleged optical distortions in CCTV footage forming part of the prosecution's case, particularly in relation to the alleged attempted homicide.

The appellant argued that police investigations were inadequate and may have misled the jury. He maintained that no magisterial inquiry had been conducted, that the investigating officer had not personally attended the crime scene, and that no scene-of-crime experts were initially appointed to photograph or measure distances relevant to the incident.

He further criticised the handling and preservation of CCTV footage, noting that the footage was initially viewed on WhatsApp and later provided by the victim on a pen drive containing only selected clips. By the time a court-appointed expert examined the material, the original recordings had been overwritten.

The defence argued that the wide-angle lenses and camera angles distorted the scene, exaggerating the apparent proximity of the stone to the victim. He relied on testimony suggesting that the stone landed approximately 30 centimetres away from the ladder and that it was never aimed at Mario Grech.

The final ground of appeal concerned the sentence of 32 years' imprisonment imposed by the Criminal Court. The defence argued that the lower court had erred in law when calculating the minimum sentence applicable to attempted homicide after a reduction of two degrees from life imprisonment. The court upheld this argument, finding that under Articles 31 and 32 of the Criminal Code, a reduction of two degrees from life imprisonment results in a sentencing range of eight to 30 years, not a minimum of 30 years as held by the Court.

The court therefore partially upheld the appeal and varied the sentence imposed by the Criminal Court by reducing it from 32 years to 20 years imprisonment.

The judgement was delivered by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, together with Judges Edwina Grima and Giovanni Grixti.