Warder pressed on payments to prison ‘queen’

Earning €900 a month was normal for prisoners, warder Alison Sgendo told jurors yesterday, as she tried to shake off suggestions that she behaved abusively in her job as a prison accountant.

Ms Sgendo said that certain prisoners could earn large amounts as supervisors when fellow inmates did sub-contracted work for either Bank of Valletta or Playmobil.

She was testifying during the trial of Josette Bickle, 42, of Valletta, who on Monday was dubbed “the queen” of the jail because warders and inmates alike were scared of her and she could do anything she liked.

Ms Bickle is accused of trafficking drugs inside prison between 2006 and 2008.

Ms Sgendo said she had been in the job for the last 10 years and her main task was to add the earnings of the various prisoners to their respective accounts.

‘I was her slave’

The prisoners, like the accused, were given one cheque for being a supervisor and another for the work they carried out.

When asked by prosecuting lawyer Jason Grima how large the amounts were, the witness said there were good months and bad months. When asked to specify the amounts, she said a bad month would render €7 and a good month €230.

Armed with a list of transactions pertaining to Ms Bickle’s account, the lawyer then asked her to explain payments of some €840 to Ms Bickle. In reply Ms Sgendo said it was normal for prisoners to earn that much and she said some even received up to €900.

Dr Grima then turned his line of questioning to confront Ms Sgendo about allegations made by former prisoner Pauline Pisani. He asked her about a claim that Ms Sgendo and former prisons director Sandro Gatt had approached Ms Pisani and warned her to pay Ms Bickle back the money she owed her from the time they were on the outside.

“Is she for real,” Ms Sgendo asked in reply, adding that this allegation was completely untrue and she would have no reason to go to the cell block which was far away from her office.

Furthermore, the only contact she had with inmates was through the telephone when they would ask her to buy things for them from outside, which was part of her job too, she said.

Questioned about a transaction of €35 of the money owed from Ms Pisani’s account to Ms Bickle’s, she said it was a one-off. She described Ms Bickle as being “naughty” and hard headed but these were qualities that “a million others” had.

Former inmate Elaine Muscat confirmed what she had previously told investigating police: that when Ms Bickle left prison she needed the help of the whole division to move her things.

Ms Muscat had carried two of the four television sets Ms Bickle kept in a spare cell along with DVD players, mobile phones, a surround sound system and lockers full of items such as 20 packets of tobacco, the witness said.

To obtain heroin from Ms Bickle she would pay with whatever she could, including clothes and cigarettes.

And she became her slave. Her craving for drugs was at times so strong that she would go and stand by Ms Bickle’s cell just to try and smell the heroin that she was smoking.

When asked if the warders too could smell the drug, the witness said she was sure they could and they kept their mouths shut because they were scared of Ms Bickle, who would fight with them and shout at them.

They would give in and hand over whatever she wanted.

The prosecution closed its case yesterday and jurors are expected to retire to deliberate today once final arguments have been made.