Barcelona officers get prison time for wrongly accusing woman of abuse

Two Barcelona police officers were sentenced to two years in prison for making a false accusation that a woman had beaten her baby. The statement resulted in an eight-month legal separation of the mother and child, TheLocal.es reported. The officers, whose names were not released, were also ordered to pay $2,026 in fines for the crime. The incident occurred in April 2010, after they had been sent to investigate reports that a Romanian woman and her child were begging outside a supermarket. The officers claimed that the woman was kicking the baby's stroller and knocking it over near where vehicles were passing. They also said that the woman had struck the baby girl several times. The officers forcefully took custody of the child and an ambulance took the baby to a hospital. The woman was arrested and charged with abuse and begging with children, and she was prevented from seeing her baby until legal proceedings were complete. Doctors at the hospital found no evidence of mistreatment, and a forensic investigation also yielded no trace of abuse. The lack of evidence and statements from numerous witnesses led a judge to remove the injunction against the mother.