Forges motherin-law’s blue badge to park
A woman has been handed a suspended jail sentence after she forged her mother-in-law’s blue badge so she could benefit from reserved parking boxes for those with mobility problems.
Annelise Calleja, 50, from Birkirkara, pleaded guilty to the charge when she appeared before Magistrate Astrid May Grima. She was accused of forgery and of knowingly making use of the forged document.
The blue badge is a legal document issued to drivers with severe and permanent mobility restrictions that allows them to park in specific reserved places.
Sources said the woman made a replica of her mother-in-law’s blue badge before laminating it. She was caught after she used it to park in the reserved parking spaces for persons with disability at Mater Dei Hospital in September 2022.
Sources said the Commission for the Rights of Persons with a Disability (CRPD) was seeing a spike in reports about fake blue badges and had increased enforcement.
Last July, Inclusion Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli told parliament that a total of 190 forged blue badges were flagged to the CRPD since January 2022.
She said 108 fake blue badges were identified in 2022, and another 82 were flagged in the first six months of 2023.
Farrugia Portelli was replying to a parliamentary question by PN MP Ivan Bartolo who asked how many blue badges were revoked since 2020.
The minister said the government was considering legal amendments to address a loophole in the law since, although the forgery of blue badges is a punishable offence, the use of such is not.
Farrugia Portelli said 12 blue badges were revoked by the commission in the past three years.
Blue badges were originally issued by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability, but the responsibility was handed over to Aġenzija Sapport in 2022 which in just over a year received 5,600 applications. Applicants must be approved by an independent medical board to receive a badge.
Since January last year, the agency issued over 1,270 blue badges. That number includes renewals for badge holders whose document has expired.