A British father who was facing jail in Malta for punching a local yob who died days later has been cleared and vowed he would never return to the country after a court ruled the hotel brawl was not the cause of death.
Liam Stacey, 29, was found not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm during the fight involving a group of drunken men who were allegedly exposing themselves to sunbathers and pulling a woman by the hair.
Stacey asked the group to move away from the children’s pool but chaos erupted after one of the men, Roderick Sciortino, slapped him in the face.
Stacey hit back with a single punch, knocking Sciortino unconscious.
The 35-year-old died in hospital five days later from a brain aneurysm.
Describing his relief at the judgement delivered on Wednesday, Stacey said: ‘It is finally over.’
The father was on holiday with his three young daughters, aged two, three and eight, shortly before his family trip turned into a living hell.
‘I am glad that I can go back home to my wife and kids,’ Stacey told the Times of Malta, adding that the whole episode had been ‘chaotic’.
Liam Stacey, 29, was found not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm during the fight involving a group of men who were allegedly exposing themselves to sunbathers and pulling a woman by the hair
Stacey asked the group to move away from the children’s pool but chaos erupted after one of the men, Roderick Sciortino, slapped him in the face
Stacey hit back with a single punch, knocking Sciortino unconscious. The 35-year-old died in hospital five days later from a brain aneurysm
He said the situation had negatively impacted his children and his wife and that they planned never to return to Malta.
The court determined that the ‘ill-mannered, boorish and aggressive behaviour’ of Sciortino, and the ‘uncouth and belligerent behaviour’ of Jesmond Portelli – another member of the poolside group – were to blame for the brawl.
‘If there was a victim in this incident it most certainly was the defendant and his family.’
The court ruled that Stacey’s actions were trying to ‘ward off an unjust and grave attack unleashed upon him by Sciortino, who after punching Stacey, was punched back by the said defendant’.
The court said that there was proportionality in Stacey’s actions.
It was established that Stacey was provoked and endured verbal attacks by Sciortino, who was asked several times to calm down.
‘The level of force used was reasonable and less than commensurate to the unwarranted aggressiveness he [Stacey] was subjected to; hence the proportionality requirement is also satisfied,’ the court ruled.
In court, a medical expert said Sciorentino’s death was not caused by the blow, describing it instead as a ‘pathological bleed’ that struck at the wrong moment
Stacey had been relaxing beside the pool when he confronted a group of drunken locals who were disturbing hotel guests, asking them to move elsewhere.
But his polite request was answered with violence as one of the men, Sciortino, slapped him across the face and sent him stumbling over his toddler daughter.
Stacey retaliated, punching Sciortino and sending him crashing to the ground.
Footage shows holidaymakers screaming as the fight spiraled out of control, with video showing fists flying before Sciortino lay unconscious by the poolside.
Following the fight, Stacey was arrested and detained in a cell, before being released on bail and returning to the UK.
He returned to Malta for the final court session.
In a previous one, a medical expert confirmed Sciortino’s death was unrelated to the punch, describing it instead as a ‘pathological bleed’ that struck at the wrong moment.
Stacey’s mother, Dawn Lockyer, said he was ‘devastated’ after being charged.
Roderick Sciortino, whose death was unrelated to the punch
She feared he woudn’t come out alive if he was jailed, citing ‘horrendous’ conditions in Maltese prisons.
‘He (Stacey) was arrested and put into the cells and he said it was absolutely awful,’ Ms Lockyer told Daily Mail.
‘He said if he ever had to do jail there, he would never come out alive. He said it was horrendous.’
Sciortino’s relatives turned up to Stacey’s first court hearing shouting threats and making cut-throat gestures at him from the public gallery.
‘My son asked them to take it away from the children’s pool and the man hit him. My son landed on my granddaughter, who’s two, and she started crying.
‘And then obviously, my son’s retaliation was hit back,’ Ms Lockyer, who travelled with the family but did not directly witness the altercation, said.
‘It just happened so fast because the Maltese man slaps Liam quite quickly. He never gives Liam a chance to speak.’
Staff tried to contain the chaos but the group reportedly threatened to throw them in the pool.
Ms Lockyer said Stacey has been left ‘devastated by the incident’ and ‘can’t think of anything else’.
‘It’s not in Liam’s character to be like that. He’s really laid back so it was a bit of a shock.’
She added: ‘He’s not sleeping. He’s on sleeping tablets. He can’t think of anything else.’
Despite the medical evidence, Sciortino’s relatives blamed Stacey for his death.
Medicolegal expert Mario Scerri testified in court that he examined Sciortino in Mater Dei Hospital’s intensive care unit.
A medical certificate initially classified his injuries as serious – citing a fractured nasal bone and a brain haemorrhage – but Scerri later confirmed that there were no external injuries to explain the haemorrhage.
The nasal fracture was from 2018, it was discovered.
The only visible injury was a small bruise on the back of Sciortino’s head, which was determined as unrelated to the brain bleed and likely sustained when he fell on the ground.
Scerri added that Sciortino’s blood pressure was recorded at 200, high enough to rupture an artery, and his alcohol levels were inflated.
He had no ‘visible injuries compatible to a beating, compatible to blows, no injuries… No injuries whatsoever,’ Scerri’s testimony said.
From the testimonies in court, it transpired that Stacey was the first to be attacked, initially by Sciortino, according to local reports.
During the first hearing, one witness, British senior police officer Tonya Cook, explained how a group of seven to eight Maltese individuals arrived that morning and began to drink heavily.
They had a baby with them and, according to Cook, were spilling their drinks and even hanging the child upside down.
After having lunch with her husband, Cook returned and found the group taking personal items of the guests from their sunbeds so that they could get loungers where they wanted.
Later on, Cook heard screams coming from the pool and saw one man in red shorts shouting at a woman and pulling her hair.
She also described the water as being full of a woman’s hair and having a strange colour.
Although she and her friends had asked hotel staff to intervene, they refused, not wanting to get involved.
Cook then found a crowd around a Maltese man on the floor ‘turning blue’ as well as her friend, an emergency doctor, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him.
She also recalled seeing a man in red shorts running towards the exit, hitting people as he went through and making strange noises.
Although Cook pleaded with hotel staff to lock the doors, they refused since this man was a paying guest.
Cook managed to hold the man and even asked police officers to arrest him.
Although he was detained, he was later released once he began to cry.
The police officer also recalled her encounter with Stacey’s partner, Natasha Jerrard, who she described as being ‘absolutely distraught’.
After helping Jerrard to her room, Cook was informed by Stacey that he pushed someone who had punched him.
Jerrard also testified that one of the men had come up to, and slapped Stacey, causing him to fall on their two-year-old.
She added that her partner got up and punched the man, who fell on the ground.
Martin Wesley, the partner of Stacey’s mother, also provided testimony and referred to the group of Maltese individuals who were ‘drinking loads’.
According to Wesley, Stacey had told the group to be quiet as they had been upsetting the children.
Following coverage of the incident, hospitality and leisure company the db Group condemned all violence and inappropriate behaviour.
It said: ‘db Group is treating this matter with the utmost seriousness and has launched internal investigation.
‘db Group is fully cooperating with all the relevant authorities to ensure transparency and accountability. In addition, we have also taken other preemptive actions such as strengthening of security measures and a review of our admissions policy.’
They added that if shortcomings from staff members come to light, ‘disciplinary action will be taken without any hesitation’.
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