A 15-year-old girl who was bullied and assaulted by a gang near her Mqabba home last month, was given a hostile welcome by the bully’s friend when she returned to school on Monday, a court has heard.
The girl's father testified that a close friend of the 13-year-old bully who assaulted his daughter threatened her: “I’m here now [issa hawn jien].”
The man, whose name cannot be published to safeguard the identity of his daughter, was testifying against 21-year-old Jake Dalli Balzan, the bully’s boyfriend and also allegedly one of six involved in the November 23 attack.
Last week, the court heard that a 15-year-old victim told police that a 13-year-old schoolmate who had long bullied her, tried to stab her three times with a penknife while her boyfriend punched her on the head and kicked her in the stomach. The incident happened near her Mqabba home.
'They’ll kill me'
The father said the family had noticed a sudden change in his daughter when school started in September.
“We could hardly recognise her,” he said, explaining how his daughter started getting panic attacks.
Then as days went by, money would go missing from the family home.
“One day one of my sons would come and ask, ‘Pa’ I found €100 missing. Did you need something?’”
This happened several times. Different amounts of cash disappeared from his sons’ savings, his wife’s purse and the manbag he would leave in the kitchen.
“We began to point fingers at each other.”
He finally decided to solve the mystery by installing a small camera in the kitchen.
On November 19, after his daughter had left for school, he checked the footage.
He saw his daughter in her school uniform, taking cash from his bag on the kitchen table, while her mum called out, “come on! You’ll miss the school bus.”
The father immediately rang the girl’s headmaster, asking him to summon his daughter immediately to his office.
Girl trembled as headmaster was told about bullying
The girl began to tremble when he confronted her in the presence of the school head.
“Open your bag and empty it. Give me those €40 you took from me,” he ordered.
She was silent. There was nothing in her bag.
“Will you hand them over or should I go to the police?” her father insisted.
He momentarily left the office so that the head could speak to the girl privately. When he went back inside, the girl pleaded, “they’ll kill me”.
She appeared about to faint. But when she recovered, she poured out her story.
The witness recalled how he was gripped by a desire to kick up a scene in school but he controlled himself. He told the headmaster he would file a police report, leaving it to the headmasteer to handle the situation on the school front.
But the following day, the situation took a turn for the worse.
His daughter received a threatening message from a fake profile peppered with foul language and mentioning “stabbing.”
He alerted the headmaster. “Look sir, this is serious now,”he said in a WhatsApp message together with a screenshot of the message received by the girl.
“Go file a police report, quick,” replied the headmaster.
His daughter locked herself in her room, angrily telling her father, “now they’ll kill me because of you.”
'The shock of my life'
On November 23, the father was at work in Fgura when an unknown caller texted him repeatedly.
“Please call me urgently,” the caller texted.
When he returned the call a woman told him, “your daughter is on the ground outside near the [Mqabba] school.”
He had warned his daughter not to go out until they received word from the police, but she had disregarded the warning.
He called his wife and drove to Mqabba at breakneck speed.
As he approached the area, the scene that met his eyes gave him the “shock of his life.”
The place was swarming with police officers, an ambulance and other people. But when he spotted his daughter lying on the ground covered in a sheet, his blood turned cold. His wife was screaming nearby.
It turned out that paramedics had put a cover over the girl because she was feeling cold. She could not speak much at the time.
Later in hospital as he sat by her bedside, the girl told him about the attack.
Girl had a gun pointed to her head
She had gone to the usual meeting place, an alley close to their home, to tell her bully she could not meet a demand for €400.
She found a “shortish” man, face covered, who demanded the cash and held a gun to her head. When she told him that she did not have the money, she suddenly heard someone shout, “then beat her up.” A gang of five then assaulted her.
She told her father that she recognised the 13-year-old bully’s voice and the bully's boyfriend, Dalli Balzan, through the tattoo on his hand.
The witness said that when she told him about the bullying in school, his daughter always mentioned the 13-year-old girl who was sometimes accompanied by another girl.
When his daughter returned to school on Monday, the bully’s friend tried to attack her. She was prevented from doing so by her friends.
“Issa hawn jien,” the girl told his daughter, claiming she was angry because the alleged victim had spilt the beans on the bully.
His daughter was now refusing to go back to school, the man said.
The matter was reported to the school authorities who handed the other girl a one-day expulsion.
'I was stabbed with a penknife'
A woman who came across the young teenager shortly after the assault also testified on Tuesday.
She said she was alarmed when she saw the girl sitting on the pavement, crying and pressing her side.
“Her face showed she was in pain.”
The girl told her she had been stabbed with a penknife. She mentioned a girl’s name [the bully] and no one else, said the witness.
The woman dialled the emergency number and tried to get through to the girl’s parents but the victim only managed to give her the first two digits of her father’s number. She then passed out.
“That scared me even more,” recalled the witness.
Soon afterwards, the girl’s mother arrived.
“They finally did it to her,” she cried as she called out to her daughter.
Under cross-examination, the witness said that she did not recall seeing blood. She did not get too close to the girl because she was scared of blood.
She also said that the girl only mentioned that she was stabbed. She mentioned no other injury.
The victim’s best friend testified via videoconference.
She said the two would go out together at weekends and also met regularly on weekdays when the alleged victim visited her friend’s farmhouse.
Her friend would always insist on paying when they bought something to eat.
“She wouldn’t even give me a chance to take out my money,” said the witness.
She would sometimes comment, “where do you get all that money?”
She said her friend had once bought her a pair of Nike slippers that cost €100 and a second pair for herself.
The girl’s father later said under cross-examination that his daughter did so under his direction and she got the money for those slippers from his wife.
On the day of the gang attack, the victim’s friend had a premonition and headed out to meet her friend.
She came across the scene near the victim’s home.
Before being rushed to hospital, the victim warned her, “take care. Don’t go out.”
After Tuesday’s marathon session the court, presided over by Magistrate Kevan Azzopardi, heard submissions on bail.
The request was turned down at this early stage since the court did not have peace of mind that the accused would abide by bail conditions.
There was the fear of tampering with evidence and thus interfering in the course of justice, even in light of the fact that there were other persons, including his underage girlfriend, who were allegedly involved.
The case continues.
Inspector Wayne Bonello prosecuted. Lawyers David Bonello and Joseph Borda are defence counsel. Lawyer Jason Azzopardi appeared parte civile.