A police officer broke down in tears in court after interrogators blamed him for failing to stop the rape of his female colleague who was assaulted while he napped on duty.

A former police constable has been accused of repeatedly raping a female colleague and sexually assaulting another young officer between 2017 and 2018.

Inspector Brian Xuereb, one of the witnesses to take the stand yesterday, had been stationed at Msida station when the alleged crimes occurred.

The inspector explained that on the night of the incident, he had been unwell and had taken medication that made him drowsy.

He had fallen asleep on the sergeant’s sofa in the police station while their sergeant was out on a call, leaving the accused and alleged victim alone.

Interrogators asked Xuereb whether he was a deep sleeper, and said that: “if something big had happened, I would have woken up… I didn’t sleep till the morning”.

While cross-examining the inspector, lawyer Edward Gatt recalled his testimony before the Court of Magistrates, where Xuereb described being called into an inspector’s office to give a statement about the matter.

“The inspector said: ‘because of you. a policewoman was raped and a police officer is going to end up in prison’;” the lawyer said, reading out the transcript of his previous testimony.

“That was the trigger,” said the witness.

“I felt threatened at that point. I had always tried to defend my officers from criminals and other threats… I said ‘are you making this declaration before even asking me what I had seen? If you decided not to believe me and already condemned me, we are drawing a line between us.’”

At this point, Xuereb broke into tears and requested some minutes to recompose himself.

The case is ongoing.