An adult man who injured his underage girlfriend’s mother with a knife when she stepped in to break up a fight between him and her husband has been placed under probation.

Ibrahim Suod, a 23-year-old Maltese national, was found guilty of the July 2021 incident which marked the culmination of tensions between himself and his girlfriend’s parents.

Her father claimed that Suod treated their daughter “like a slave,” sometimes beating her. Ever since she started her relationship with the youth at the tender age of 15, the girl had totally changed, he said.

She no longer dressed like she used to before, no longer applied makeup, cut off contact with her friends and also deleted all her social media accounts, her father claimed.

The girl claimed that her parents disapproved of her boyfriend because Ibrahim was Muslim.

Matters came to a head one evening in July 2021 after her father came across some messages she had exchanged with her boyfriend on her computer.

Her parents decided to go to Ibrahim’s home to speak to his parents, to complain about the way their son was treating their daughter.

Her father brought along one of his employees, a Syrian national, to act as an interpreter.

They drove to Marsa and parked their car opposite a house. They saw Suod’s brother smoking a cigarette on the balcony.

The girl’s parents approached and through their interpreter explained that they wished to speak to his parents.

He headed indoors to relay their message to his brother, who happened to be at home with his girlfriend.

The unexpected arrival of the girl’s parents sent them into a panic, since she had never told her parents where her boyfriend lived.

 Soon, both brothers and the minor went outside to speak to her parents.

After telling them that it was not possible to speak to their own parents, the Suod brothers suddenly began to jump about, pushing the girl’s parents and telling them to go away.

The couple tried to persuade their daughter to go home with them, but it was all in vain.

The father turned onto his daughter's boyfriend, and that was when the situation escalated.

As the father advanced, Suod lashed out with a knife, hitting the girl’s mother who had stepped in to break up the fight.

The woman suffered a hand injury and was whisked off to hospital in an ambulance. By the time the violent episode was over, the interpreter had vanished from sight.

The accused turned out to have been holding a knife with a broken blade in his hand.

Suod was subsequently charged with slightly injuring his girlfriend’s mother, insulting and threatening her parents, carrying a weapon without the necessary police licence, assaulting the father as well as wilfully breaching the peace.

He pleaded not guilty, his lawyer arguing that he had acted in legitimate self-defence.

When delivering judgment the court, presided over by Magistrate Kevan Azzopardi, observed that the weapon had certainly been in the accused’s hand.

It was handed to police by his brother and there was no doubt that it was taken from the accused’s home.

Evidence showed that the incident was not the first clash between the parties.

That evening, the accused had been within the safety of his home and when his girlfriend’s parents turned up unannounced, he could have chosen to remain indoors or speak to them from the balcony.

Instead, he had gone out into the street to face his alleged aggressors, armed with a knife.

Against such a scenario, the plea of legitimate self defence was not applicable.

But were the accused’s actions excusable?

After assessing the evidence, the court concluded that the accused had reacted when the father advanced to attack him.

Thus the injuries upon the mother and the assault against the father were excusable in terms of law because “provoked by an offence against the person.”

The insults and threats were not sufficiently proved and the breach of public peace had not been included in the Attorney General’s note of remittance.

The unlawful possession of the knife was proved beyond reasonable doubt.

When all was considered, the court placed the youth under a two-year probation order as well as a restraining order for an equal term. He was also ordered to pay a fine of €116.47 for carrying the knife without the necessary police licence.

Inspector Roderick Attard prosecuted.