A man was yesterday fined €50 after being found guilty of slightly injuring his former wife after she provoked him when she spat at him during an argument.

On arriving from Libya, where he was on a business trip, the man realised that he had lost his house keys and so could not get in. About to separate from his wife, they had agreed that he would enter the house through the garage while his wife would use the main door.

The woman was about to go to sleep when she heard loud knocking on the front door. On finding her husband at the door, she angrily informed him that he had got her out of bed, adding that this was the last time she would open the door again because she was not his servant.

The woman testified that her husband had tried to strangle her and, shortly after the argument they had he pinned her down to the ground but she managed to escape from the house alerting neighbours, who accompanied her to the police station to make a report.

The court heard that she had previously made false reports about her husband accusing him of abusing their children and showed them pornographic films.

The husband said in court that on the night after she his wife opened the door, he walked in and went straight for the staircase when, all of a sudden, she walked in front of him and tried to stop him.

He said he told her she was acting like what her mother would do to her father and she then slapped him in the face knocking off his glasses.

When she spat in his face, the husband said he pushed her to one side, causing her to fall and this is when she was slightly injured after his big Longines watch scratched her face.

He said he has paid to his wife the children's maintenance right up till they are 18-years-old and this in order to avoid ever speaking to her again.

Commenting on her allegation that he tried to strangle her, the husband explained that it was his watch that caused the injuries adding that she had made up the part about other injuries.

However, a medical certificate backed up by neighbours' evidence, indicated that there were scratches on her neck and that she had been in a state of panic.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera said she would have to weigh up the credibility of the witnesses giving the conflicting evidence before her.

After taking into consideration the testimony of the couple, the court found the husband not guilty of holding his wife against her will but guilty of slightly injuring her, excusable because he had been provoked.