Roberta Metsola has called for an end to "institutional blindness" to violence against women as she raised the murder of "fallen warrior" Bernice Cassar in the European Parliament. 

The EP president criticised authorities for leaving the 40-year-old woman "alone" despite her repeat reports of violence. 

“Stop killing women, stop beating women, stop abusing women,” Metsola said in the speech on Wednesday afternoon. 

Cassar, a mother-of-two, was murdered at 8 am on Tuesday morning while driving to work at Corradino industrial estate, Paola. 

Bernice Cassar was murdered as she drove to work on Tuesday morning.

She was shot twice with a shotgun, and her estranged husband Roderick is the only suspect in the case. He was arrested early on Wednesday morning after a 17-hour standoff.

Just a week before her murder, Cassar told police that her husband had breached a court order designed to protect her from the man who allegedly once held a knife to her throat. 

“For months, this woman had asked for protection and assistance, but she never received any," Metsola told MEPs. "She was left alone."

Metsola called for more proper protection frameworks for domestic violence victims, and for more convictions of those who prey on women. She also called for an end to the remaining "institutional blindness" to violence against women.

"We are not talking about victims, these are our fallen warriors," she told plenary.

"Bernice should have arrived to work yesterday. She should have been able to go home and play with her children."

She said none of the "horrific examples" of violence against women should take place in Europe.

In her maiden speech as president in January, Metsola had paid tribute to Paulina Dembska, who was raped and murdered in Sliema on New Year's Day and Ashling Murphy, who was killed while out jogging in Offaly, Ireland in the same month. 

"I know I stand on the shoulders of giants, the shoulders of Ashling, Paulina and all the other women whose lives have already been stolen this year," she had said.