Young tourist fined €5,000 for biting policewoman

A young Czech student left a courtroom in tears this afternoon after she was handed a suspended sentence and a €5,000 fine for biting a policewoman whilst drunk earlier this morning.

Police Inspector Godwin Scerri told Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras how officers reacting to a report had found 21-year-old Barbora Krizkova passed-out drunk on the stairs of the common area of a block of flats in St. Paul’s Bay at around 3 am this morning.

The court was heard how Krizkova had been taken to the police station for her own safety. It was there that the small, timid girl, who could not have weighed more than 40kg, allegedly assaulted a policewoman, biting her and tearing her uniform. She later released a statement saying that she could not remember her actions on account of the fact that she had been heavily intoxicated at the time.

She was charged with violently resisting arrest, threatening police officers in the course of their duties and with being unable to take care of herself in a public place on account of her being drunk.

This morning, the girl apologised for the actions attributed to her. “I am not an aggressive person and I don’t want to hurt anyone” said the accused.

The magistrate, together with legal aid lawyer Yana Micallef Starace slowly and painstakingly explained to the girl that she would have to enter a plea and the implications of this fact. Clearly having difficulty in understanding and unaided by an interpreter, the accused eventually pleaded guilty.

In her submissions on punishment, Micallef Stafrace asked the court to take into account the fact that Kirzkova was in Malta on holiday and had cooperated with the police and had pleaded guilty at an early stage of proceedings. If the court saw fit to impose a fine, she said, the defence would be requesting a period of time over which to pay it. The prosecution did not insist on an effective prison term.

The court handed the girl a seven month prison sentence suspended for eighteen months and ordered her to pay a €5,000 fine within the next three months.