Partit Demokratiku leader and MP Marlene Farrugia has asked what the authorities are doing in case of ongoing domestic violence that last week culminated into a bloody fight in Birkirkara.

Sections of the media had reported that two men, one of whom is a suspended police inspector, engaged in fisticuffs after a simple car crash near a popular supermarket. But the following day a the partner of the second man spoke to The Malta Independent and claimed that her estranged husband – the former inspector – had subjected her to more than a decade of domestic violence and that the violent row was just the latest in a series of incidents.

She said her husband attacked her, in front of her children, as she headed towards her partner’s house, and that the former inspector later attacked her partner and tried to force his way into the Birkirkara home.

The former police officer has been released on bail but the woman’s partner, who was also charged with causing grievous bodily harm, was kept in custody. 

The woman told this newspaper that she had often suffered physical abuse and provided pictures of a past episode where she ended up with a black eye and a bloody lip.

She also produced a u number of threatening SMSs she had received from the former inspector, with whom is going through separation proceedings. In the messages he says he has made it his mission to put his wife and her partner in jail.

Most importantly, she claimed that she had been reporting these cases to the police, and had even gone to speak to police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, but no action had been taken.

The woman and her mother, who accompanied her to the interview, also questioned why the police who responded to the call did not perform a breathalyzer test on the former inspector.

The suspended officer had faced disciplinary proceedings following a number of incidents, including one in which he threatened the police commissioner while drunk.

In a Facebook post earlier this week, Marlene Farrugia asked what was being done with regard to this situation. “Where is the minister for equality and civil rights? Where is the Commissioner for Children? Who is protecting the children’s rights? Why has the perpetrator been released on bail? Are the police waiting for this woman to be killed before proper decisive action is taken in view of the record of domestic violence? Is the perpetrator being treated or helped in any way?”