A man from Xlendi who, after being stopped by police stripped naked and invited the officers to grab his exposed genitals, has been let off with a fine.

31-year-old Charles Paul Muscat was charged in connection with an incident that took place on 22 February 2014 in Xaghra, Gozo. Muscat was a passenger in a car which the police said was being driven dangerously by Jethro Camilleri in Marsalforn when police officers gave chase and pulled the car over in Xaghra.

PC Joseph Micallef said Muscat got out of the car, in the back of which his children had been seated, and started arguing with him. At one point, said Micallef, the accused took off his clothes, grabbed his genitals and “said something like ‘you lot can grab my balls’” several times.

Muscat was arrested and accused of offending public morals, insulting or threatening a public officer in the exercise of his duties, carrying a knife without a licence and breaching bail conditions.

But the court held that Muscat’s actions did not lead to the extremes contemplated by the public morals charge, instead found him guilty of a lesser offence, of a contraventional nature.

On the charges of insulting or threatening a public officer, the court noted that the victim in such a crime must have been performing a public duty and that the assailant had intended to intimidate or influence that person in the execution of that duty. The court held that this had not been proven and the accused was also cleared of this charge.

On the charge of carrying a knife in public the accused had explained that he had taken the knife to peel apples for his children. It was found in his car and had not been used during the commission of the offence in question. He was cleared of breaching bail conditions due to the fact that the prosecution had only exhibited a transcript of his previous arraignment and not his bail conditions.

He was, however found guilty of the contravention of having performed obscene acts, offensive to public morality, propriety or decency in public.

In his considerations on punishment, Magistrate Joe Mifsud sought inspiration from a Papal address, delivered last February, in which Pope Francis had stated that retributive justice alone did not lead to true justice.

The court, having found Muscat not guilty of four of the five charges against him, imposed a fine of €58.