Court hears policewoman’s tearful account of attack by traffic warden

A heavily pregnant female police constable has told a court how an off-duty warden, consumed by road rage, had reached into her open car window and undid her seatbelt before his wife pulled him away. 

Warden Michael Grech, 47, was summoned before Magistrate Joe Mifsud today to answer to charges of assaulting a public servant, using foul language in public, causing voluntary damage to the constable’s car and committing an offence that he was in duty bound to prevent.

The officer, who is due to give birth next week, testified today. “I had finished work at the depot and there was a lot of traffic. I pulled out slowly from the junction because there was a lot of traffic.”

The constable told the court, “I saw this man tell his wife, ‘I don't want to give way, she can go f*** herself,’” before turning to the officer and telling her to do precisely that. 

Her voice breaking with emotion, the officer recalled how she had begged him not to cause her distress as she was pregnant. “I told him not to swear in front of his son, I said ‘I am 8 months pregnant don't stress me out.’”

The officer said she had then produced her police ID card which she was sure that he had seen, but the accused carried on regardless. “Actually, it enraged him further...he started swearing and insulting me, he was not ashamed, not even in front of his son...”

She sobbed inconsolably as she remembered how, in her terror at seeing him get out of his car and approach hers, she had switched on the hazard lights instead of rolling up the windows.

The video she took on her mobile phone was a mistake, she said, saying her intention was to take a photograph of the licence plate.

“Don't film me I am a warden! I don’t give a f*** about the police and the Commissioner” he had said, before smashing her wing mirror.

Grech reached in and undid her seatbelt before his wife pulled him away, said the woman.

The terrified officer then locked the car from the inside. Such was her state of shock that she had called 199 by mistake. “He was hitting my window so hard, I thought he was going to smash it,” the officer said.

Then he got back in his car. She went to make a report at Zejtun not Valletta as it was on her way home.

Defence lawyer Roberto Montalto cross-examined the witness. He asked if she had passed a comment when the accused had not given way. She hadn't, she said, sobbing again. The car after his had given way.

“I took out my mobile because he started swearing at me. Then he said I will break you and break your mobile. All I told him was not to blaspheme or swear at me.”

She confirmed that she was not wearing her uniform as she was heavily pregnant.

“There were a lot of onlookers and people hooting but nobody came to my aid, except the man's wife. Thank god she intervened and pushed him away, because I don't know how I would have ended up.”

Prosecuting police inspector Jeffrey Scicluna informed the court that CCTV had not yet been gathered, earning him an admonition from the magistrate, who pointed out that this should have been done immediately as it was an important piece of evidence.

The case continues in March.