Legal Procurator Juanita Fenech today was found guilty of filing a false accusation, with the aim of damaging an innocent person.

The case surrounds a maintenance payment, which she alleged was never paid.

Magistrate Conseo Scerri Herrera noted that Juanita Fenech had already broken the law when she was found guilty of theft, fraud and using false documents. She was found guilty and given an 18-month suspended sentence back in 1992, and the Court noted that she had not committed a crime since then.

The Court also noted the seriousness of accusing an innocent man with prior knowledge of his innocence, and condemned her to a 6-month prison term, suspended for 4 years.

Testifying on 14 May 2013, Inspector Jonathan Ramsey had called Mario Fenech, Juanita’s estranged husband, and asked him if it were true that he failed to pay maintenance, to which he said that he had paid everything, passing on a list of cheques that had been given. The Inspector then requested a list of the cheques he had written from BOV and HSBC and came to the conclusion that the report filed was false.

Emails were also exchanged between the police and George Borg Cardona, father of Juanita Fenech, who also insisted that there were missing payments. The father explained that Mr Fenech would take long to send payments and thus could not identify which payment was missed.

The Court considered that the accused had asked Dr Daniela Cassar to file a criminal complaint with the Attard Police Station, reporting her husband Mario Fenech for failing to pay maintenance on one occasion. Mr Fenech used to write a cheque every four weeks, passing them on to his legal consultant who would then take them to his wife’s lawyer.

When the Police asked the accused if what she said in the complaint was correct, she said it was her father who had gone to the lawyer to file the complaint, not her. Lawyer Daniela Cassar, however, confirmed that it was actually the accused who went to her and said that her husband had not paid maintenance, and when asked if she had met the father, the lawyer said she did not know him.

The Court noted that Dr Cassar confirmed it was the accused who spoke to her and asked her to report the husband.

She was also given a general interdiction for 5 years.