A 41-year-old woman charged with extorting €15,000 from a greengrocer in December 2009 said in court today she had known the greengrocer, who had always fancied her, for five years and he made her life a misery.
The woman is facing the extortion charges together with her daughter, 21 and 42-year-old sister.
The greengrocer, from Zabbar, was allegedly blackmailed by the three women who took compromising pictures of him in his underwear. He has denied pursuing one of them and leaving free vegetables on her doorstep to bed her.
The court has banned publication of names.
The woman testified in court today that she had gone to the police station because her daughter was arrested. She was asked what was happening and then she was also arrested.
She said that her daughter had told the greengrocer to leave her alone and threatened him that she would tell his wife that he was pestering her mother.
“I'm telling the truth. We have really suffered and our neighbours all know about the case,” she said as she broke into tears.
The woman said the greengrocer gave her vegetables and she thought he was doing this to help her.
She said she owed him less than €1,000 but owed her sister €1,600. This money, she said, was paid back to her sister by the greengrocer.
She said that although she remembered giving a statement to the police (about the alleged blackmail), she did not sign it because it was not the truth.
Police Inspector Fabian Fleri then read out her police statement in which the woman said “we were all upset with the situation and we planned to stitch him up. My sister took a photo of him after he removed his pants. We told him we wanted €2,800 and when he gave us the money we destroyed the mobile phone.
He asked the woman if this statement was true and the woman answered she had only said this because he (the inspector) had warned her that her children would be taken away from her.
She said that because of this, she made up the story after speaking to her daughter.
The final submissions in the case are expected in April.