A woman who led the police on a car chase early on Monday morning and allegedly threw away drug sachets along the way, was remanded in custody after being taken to court a few hours later.
Lorraine Vella, 52, of Cospicua, was spotted by a police patrol driving at very high speed at around 4am.
Rather than stopping when she was flagged down, she floored the accelerator and shot off, heading towards Marsa, prosecutors said.
The police gave chase and noticed the driver throwing something out of the window.
They managed to block the car at Marsa but the woman refused to get out. All the doors of the vehicle were locked.
As the officers tried to break one of the windows, she started the car once more and drove off, sometimes driving against one-way traffic and ignoring red lights.
The officers chased her to Tarxien, again noticing her throwing something out of the window.
They finally managed to block her in Tarxien, where she was arrested.
Police found a sachet of brown substance, a pair of weighing scales and €1,400 in cash in Vella’s possession.
Retracing the route of the chase, officers retrieved two sachets filled with a white substance and a mobile phone which had also allegedly been thrown out by the suspect.
Hours after her arrest, the frail-looking woman, shabbily dressed and wearing a face mask, was escorted to court, charged with possessing cocaine and heroin under circumstances denoting that the drugs were not solely for personal use.
She was also charged with refusing to obey legitimate police orders, driving her Skoda in a reckless and dangerous manner, running a red light, driving wrong way and breaching other traffic regulations.
She was also charged with relapsing.
She pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody.
Upon a request by defence lawyers Ishmael Psaila and Maria Sarah Vella Gafa’, Magistrate Noel Bartolo issued a treatment order so that the woman could be helped for psychological and drug addiction problems.
The court also recommended that the woman be detained at Mount Carmel Hospital’s forensic ward.
Inspector Sarah Kathleen Zerafa prosecuted.