Woman handed suspended sentence after making up abduction claim

A court has handed a suspended sentence to a woman who falsely reported being kidnapped after she found herself inside a locked apartment, the morning after a drunken night out.

The woman had gone on a drinking binge after a heated argument with her boyfriend. Upon waking up the next day, the woman, whose name is being withheld by order of the court, could not recall how she had ended up in the Libyan man's Msida apartment. Disoriented and the worse for wear after the night's drinking, she called the police and reported that she had been kidnapped.

The landlord was summoned and opened the apartment door for the police.

The woman told the police that she had been kidnapped, having had a plastic bag placed over her head and punched.

Luckily for the men, however, the police officer to whom she was filing her abduction recognised her as the same person he had seen drunkenly flirting with two Libyan men in Spinola bay the night before. He had asked her whether she needed assistance and she had insisted that everything was in order. She was then seen getting into a car with one of the men. 

Prosecuting officer Trevor Micallef said it was evident that the woman had embellished the story in an effort to save face. He requested the court hand down a suspended sentence in view of the fact that the Libyan man had effectively spent eight hours under arrest for nothing.

On the man's phone, the police had found pictures of the woman posing nude. The photos had clearly been taken with the woman's consent, said the inspector adding that the sexual activity was evidently consensual.

Defence lawyer Francois Dalli submitted that the woman had panicked after finding herself locked in an unfamiliar apartment. She had not acted maliciously, he said. He appealed for leniency, on account of the woman's clean criminal record.

Magistrate Gabriella Vella handed the woman a one-month jail term suspended for a year.