Blogs 'have affected my family' - magistrate

A magistrate yesterday told a court that a series of articles about her published on Daphne Caruana Galizia's website amounted to "persistent harassment" which affected her and her children.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera was giving evidence in the case instituted by the police against the columnist. Mrs Caruana Galizia denies defaming the magistrate in a series of blog entries.

In an unusually short sitting, lasting only a few minutes, Magistrate Scerri Herrera described how she could not walk down the street without someone asking her if she had seen the latest blog about her.

The magistrate said the issue had also adversely affected her family, particularly her children. She recently found out that her fifth-form daughter was the only one in class who did not have a photo with her mother on popular social networking website Facebook.

One of her children was in the courtroom, attentively following her mother's testimony.

The magistrate said her daughter kept asking her when she could upload pictures, and she replied that she could not, ever. She had also asked her children to remove any Facebook pictures in which she featured.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera exhibited two decrees in which she abstained from hearing cases. The cases were Martin Degiorgio vs Daphne Caruana Galizia, and Daphne Caruana Galizia vs Kurt Farrugia, then editor of Maltastar.

She said she had taken the decisions alone and that the Chief Justice had never spoken to her about these cases.

The magistrate said that after her testimony at the last sitting, Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar had contacted her to say he was not present at the dinner she had mentioned in a previous sitting. She said the dinner was not important at all but she was still under the impression that it was Mr Cassar who was present.

The case continues in May when Ms Caruana Galizia is expected to testify.