Police “exaggerated” when they arrested a 28-year-old Kazakh woman and took her to court for dancing in her bikini during the Stella Maris religious procession, according to lawyers.

“The police should have exercised discretion and escorted her away instead of prosecuting and exposing the court to being perceived as open to time-wasting prosecutions such as this,” lawyer Andrew Borg Cardona said.

Lawyer Charmaine Cherrett agreed that the incident did not merit arrest. If the police wanted to take the young woman to court they could have taken her details and asked her to turn up for a district sitting. This was possible since she lived and worked in Malta.

Haven’t the police seen the way people behave at band marches?

But a spokeswoman for the police said “police could not legally administer a warning in this case” as the crime she was charged with – disturbing a religious service – stated that anyone who breached it was liable to imprisonment for a maximum of one year.

“This ruled out any other course of action by the prosecution.”

The incident, she said, went beyond indecent attire and involved mockery of a religious ceremony.

“She was also arraigned under arrest for the simple reason that she had no reliable local fixed address, as is always done in such cases,” the spokeswoman said. Sources said that, when police asked her for an address, she gave two different locations.

On Sunday,Christina Betke was arraigned in court and pleaded guilty to disturbing a religious function, being indecently dressed, being drunk in public and disturbing the peace on Saturday at about 10pm when the Stella Maris procession reached the Sliema Ferries. She was conditionally discharged for two years and fined €150.

“I think the whole case was blown out of proportion… the woman was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Dr Cherrett said, adding that context had to be kept in mind.

“It’s not like she stripped to her bikini in a village core. She had just come off a boat party, was by the shore, happened to have drunk a bit too much and stepped into a procession,” she said.

Roberto Montalto, also a lawyer, agreed that this was “definitely not a case that merited arrest”, especially since Ms Betke worked and lived in Malta. As for the punishment, he said, the conditional discharge was lenient given that the law prescribed a jail term.

Lawyer Ludvic Caruana said the punishment was reasonable, even though the fine may have been extra. He said that, while such cases were usually not taken to court by arrest, one had to look into all circumstances and whether she gave police a fixed address.

Dr Borg Cardona said the conditional discharge would have been sufficient.

“She should not have been taken to court. Haven’t the police seen the way people behave at band marches?” he questioned, referring to the skimpy attire worn during religious feast celebrations.

In reply to this point the police spokeswoman said: “As trivial as the case may seem, the accused broke the law by clearly mocking and disrupting a religious ceremony, which many take to heart, by dancing before and through a procession in a bikini. It is not simply a case of indecent attire.”