Mother charged with violently resisting authorities' attempt to take her four-day-old baby

A mentally ill mother of a two-month-old infant who resisted officials taking away her child has been charged with deliberately infecting a police officer with Hepatitis C despite the woman not having been confirmed as being a carrier of the disease.

The 22-year-old Birkirkara woman was accused of knowingly infecting a person with a contagious illness, violently resisting police in the exercise of their duties, threatening and insulting two police officers, attempting to grievously injure one officer and slightly injuring him in the process. The woman was also accused of breaching the peace, threatening two social workers, criminal damage and disobeying police orders. A tenth charge, of relapsing, was also pressed.

The woman is unemployed and lives in a shelter for women in need of social assistance.

Lawyer Jason Azzopardi argued that the incident had been blown out of all proportion. He explained that the accused suffers from psychological problems and had gone to Appogg's Pieta offices to ask why her two-month-old baby had been taken from her, just four days after its birth. The woman had been prescribed a sedative by a psychiatrist whose full name she couldn't recall, he said. “So we have a confused woman, who is prone to mental illness,” the lawyer said, arguing that her misery was then compounded by the fact that she was being denied access to her baby.

An altercation ensued and the police were called. Several officers forced the woman to the floor and handcuffed her. In the process, one of the officers had been bitten by the accused.

“She bit a policeman in the leg,” Azzopardi pointed out. “To bite someone on the leg, you must be on the floor...this is a mother who had gone to see her two-month-old baby.”

The accused cried silently in the dock as the lawyer made the case for her release.

He entered a not guilty plea on behalf of the woman, whom he described as destitute and having no means of paying for bail, asking the court to grant her bail, “if for no other reason than on humanitarian grounds... She can't not be granted bail.”

The court asked who was currently caring for the baby and was told that the infant was in the care of the Appogg agency, under a care order.

Prosecuting police Inspector Elliott Magro explained the reason for the woman being on the floor. Social workers had tried to explain to the woman that she wasn't allowed to see the child and so she had gone to Appogg's offices to argue her case. The police had intervened to prevent a more serious incident, the officer submitted. She had bitten one officer on the hand and had to be restrained. Whilst on the floor, she had bitten an officer on the leg, he said.

Although the bitten officer had suffered only slight injuries, the inspector said he was told that the woman was at a high risk of being a carrier of Hepatitis C. The injured policeman was currently being tested for this illness and had been ordered not to report to work. “The Appogg social workers are terrified of the accused. This is not the first time she had made a scene at their offices...I don't think the authorities would take a baby for no reason.”

Azzopardi pointed out that there was no proof that the woman actually suffered from Hepatitis C. “This is simply a hypothesis. I don't think it is right to bandy these accusations about,” he argued. His client had told him that she hadn't wanted to be handcuffed by male officers.

“Five policemen restrained her. This isn't Toto, il-Qattus or il-Qahbu.”

Magro pointed to the woman's criminal record which said that she had bitten people before. In fact this is not the first time the woman has been accused of biting police officers, having been arraigned on the same charge in 2014.

“She isn't Suarez, either” the magistrate quipped, as the defence pointed out that she had admitted the previous biting incident but had denied this one.

Magistrate Depasquale turned down the request for her release from arrest at this stage, in view of the fact that witnesses were still to be heard, but invited the competent authorities to “give all the necessary treatment and care to the accused when she is under her care.” He ordered that the woman be held at the forensic unit of Mount Carmel Hospital.