The police are investigating an incident where a 16-year-old girl was sexually harassed while walking with her friend in Sliema.

A spokesperson for the police confirmed that the incident was being investigated after a man slapped the teen’s buttocks after the two girls, both 16, refused to entertain his requests for a chat.

The incident happened at around 6pm on Tuesday evening at the Pjazzetta in Sliema.

Contacted by Times of Malta, the girl’s mother explained how her daughter and her friend were shopping in Sliema when the incident happened near Intersport and Starbucks on the Sliema front.

The woman said the girls had just come out of a shop when they were approached by a man who asked them whether he could talk to them for a minute. They told him to go away and that they do not talk to strangers.

“That was when the man seemed to get angry that they did not want to talk to him and he slapped my daughter’s behind. She screamed because she was startled and then burst into tears. It was a real shock,” she said.

The mother said bystanders intervened and two of them held the man while the police were called. However, an officer on the other side of the line told them to “let him go as he’s a regular”. Soon after he was let go, he was seen harassing two elderly people, she claimed. 

“I don’t care that he’s a regular. The police have a duty to act on a report. I want this man to be caught and stopped, especially if he’s a regular which to me means that the police know about him and know that he usually does this to other people. I just don't want this to happen to others,” the mother said, visibly angry at police inaction.

“I filed a report at the Sliema police station. Even more so because this guy is a regular he should be stopped and not let free. The girls are fine but traumatised,” she said.

She said she was assured that the police were looking into the matter.

She appealed to anyone who happened to be there at the time and who has footage of the incident to come forward. The woman said she had been told by people that the man is known for touching women on the Sliema front.

Just on Wednesday, a man was arraigned in court after he allegedly raped two elderly people while they walked through the streets of Ħamrun.