Defence grills woman allegedly locked up with dogs

Doubts have been raised in court about the account given by a woman who claimed to have been locked up in a tiny room with two dogs by a Maltese woman. 

33-year-old Anna Maria Jimenez is denying charges of having unlawfully detained the victim, and of threatening, assaulting and slightly injuring the woman, who suffers from an intellectual disability. 

The 39-year-old victim testified via video link this morning, telling Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit that Jimenez had constantly kept her locked up with the dogs in a room, which reeked of their urine and faeces. 

"I was locked in day and night,” said the woman, saying she was only let out of the room to wash. “I had nothing to do. I was always locked in there. I would wake up around 7am. I was not given breakfast and I had hardly any water to drink," she said. The woman also claimed to have been prevented from seeing her mother for nine years. 

But cross-examined by Jimenez’s lawyer Joe Giglio, the woman eventually conceded that she would walk the dogs, sometimes three times a day, register at the job centre, play bingo on a weekly basis, and would also cook meals both for herself and Jimenez. 

Giglio asked the witness whether Jimenez had done anything about reconnecting the daughter with her mother. She had, the woman admitted, explaining that Jimenez had taken her to see her mother "about a year ago." 

The defence asked her to explain the fact that police had found her in the kitchen, a fact that was difficult to reconcile with her assertion that she was constantly detained in her room. The woman replied that she had been let her out of the room into the kitchen at the time. 

The court upheld the defence’s request for bail, granting it against a deposit of €500 and a personal guarantee of €8,000. Jimenez must sign a bail book at her local police station daily.