A woman has been spared 15 months in jail and indefinite detention over a separate case after a court found that the bail book she was convicted of failing to sign was at a different police station than the one mentioned in the charge sheet.

Charlene Gatt, 37 from St Paul’s Bay, was convicted of having failed to sign the bail book as part of her bail conditions over a case in which she stood charged with allegedly hitting her female neighbour with a meat mallet.

The court heard how she suddenly stopped signing the bail book between October 2021 and February 2022 when she was finally rearrested and charged with breach of bail.

She was jailed for nine months and a six-month suspended sentence was brought into effect. The court had also ordered her detention until her case is decided as well as the revocation of a €5,000 bail bond.

But presiding over her appeal, Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera noted that the first court could have never found her guilty of failing to sign the bail book at the Żebbuġ police station because the bail decree presented in court by the prosecution stated that the bail book was at the police station in Paola.

On the basis of this alone, the court ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Gatt.

Moreover, the court observed that from testimonies of experts who knew Gatt, including a family doctor who had known her for at least 15 years, the woman had problems that would be better addressed outside jail. She was a single mother who was battling a drug addiction, among other problems.

Madam Justice Scerri Herrera said that Gatt would be better off outside jail, where she can be followed closely by a probation officer and other experts who can help her get her life back on the right track.

She therefore cleared her of the charges and overturned the effective jail term imposed by the first court.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri were defence counsel.