Magistrate orders mother's arrest

A magistrate yesterday ordered the arrest of a Mosta woman charged with abandoning her six-year-old daughter after hearing that police could not trace her.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera ordered the arrest after hearing Inspector Joseph Mercieca explain that police were finding it difficult to trace the woman to serve her with a court summons.

Yesterday at 6.30 a.m., the inspector added, he had gone to the woman's house to serve the summons but the woman was nowhere to be found.

Consequently, during yesterday's sitting, the magistrate ordered the woman's arrest, ruling that the case be appointed for hearing the day after her arrest.

The 45-year-old woman, whose name cannot be published to protect her child's identity, was charged on May 19.

She is pleading not guilty to abandoning her daughter, who was rescued from her mother's house by Civil Protection personnel and police officers on May 17 following repeated reports by neighbours about the way the toddler was treated.