A woman has been given a one-year jail term suspended for two years for seriously injuring her estranged husband when she broke a frame on his head.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera found the 38-year-old woman guilty of seriously injuring her husband in their matrimonial home on June 15, 2006. The couple is de facto separated.

The magistrate heard the husband explain that on the day of the incident he went home and approached his teenage son who was playing a computer game. His wife then stormed in and assaulted him.

The man explained he told the boy to leave the room and his wife smashed a glass frame on his head. He started bleeding and went to the health centre where he had to have several stitches. He also filed a police report. He later explained that he believed she was angry at him because he refused to sign separation documents.

The woman insisted that she had acted in self- defence because her husband had been violent with her earlier that day. She said that in the morning he chased her with a knife and threatened to slit her open. Then, that same afternoon, he walked in on her while she was having a bath and tried to strangle her.

On evaluating the evidence, the magistrate weighed the two testimonies and found that the husband's version was more credible.

The magistrate noted, among other things, that had the man tried to strangle the woman there would be marks on her body. This had not resulted. Even if the woman was angry at what her husband allegedly did in the morning, her actions later that day did not constitute self-defence. It would have been self-defence had she hit him at the moment she felt threatened.

The magistrate therefore found the woman guilty of seriously injuring her husband and gave her a one-year jail term suspended for two years.

Names are not being published to protect the identity of the child.

Police Inspector Joseph Agius prosecuted.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.