Pardoned mother at risk of jail once more

The woman recently granted a presidential pardon after she was jailed for three months for denying her ex-husband access to their son, is at risk of ending up in prison again unless she receives a second pardon. The 57-year-old teacher was sentenced to serve a one-month prison term last March after she was found guilty of breaching a separate court ruling related to access to her son. She appealed against the one-month jail term and has now asked President George Abela to grant another pardon before the Appeal Court hears the case. In a formal request for the second presidential pardon, lawyer Ludvic Caruana said his client “sincerely felt” that once the Attorney General had recommended the pardon the first time, the same recommendation should be made this time as the charges were “identical”. A few days after the decision she filed an appeal arguing, as she did in the other case, that her son, who was then 16, did not go to his father out of his own will and she could not force him to. In the pardon request Dr Caruana said there was nothing stopping the President from issuing the pardon at this stage, since the appeal hearing had not yet started. On October 15 the President had...