A Mosta woman charged with abandoning her six-year-old daughter voluntarily showed up in court after she learnt, through the media, that a magistrate had ordered her arrest because the police could not trace her.

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

The 45-year-old woman, whose name cannot be published to protect her child's identity, is pleading not guilty to abandoning her daughter, who was rescued from the woman's house by Civil Protection personnel and police officers on May 17 following repeated reports by neighbours about the negligent way the girl was being treated. The girl was reportedly found unwashed and without food and drink, alone with 39 cats.

Although the woman had not been arraigned under arrest, and therefore bail was not applicable, the magistrate ordered her to sign every day at the police station in her locality.