Acting head of the state-owned Agency for Public Information (API), Nadia Slater and one of her female relatives have been taken for medical attention after an attack at her home in Clare Valley, Tuesday morning.
Slater has told police that she was attacked by one of her cousins, who has since been taken into custody, a well placed source said.
iWitness News was reliably informed that police responded after 3 a.m. to a report that Slater was attacked at her home.
The officers met Slater, who is around 45, with injuries to her face, including to her mouth.
Slater’s aunt, who is said to be in her 70s, also had injuries.
iWitness News was reliably informed that Slater told police that she was awoken by a noise outside her bedroom.
When she checked, she came face-to-face with a man whom she identified as one of her cousins — also surnamed Slater — who attacked and beat her.
The man then went into the aunt’s room and beat her, also resulting in injuries.
The man then fled the scene.
Police are said to have found a ladder to the back of Slater’s house and theorised that the assailant used it to enter the house through a bathroom window.
Police have since apprehended the suspect, who remains in custody while the two women are being treated in the hospital for their injuries.
Slater has been in the news over the last week.
She was sent on leave after a “comedy of errors” in which the API referred to Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves as prime minister in an email invitation to the media.
Slater then sent an email offering an apology, saying that it was “a genuine error with malicious intent”.
The API later issued a press release-style apology for errors in the previous correspondence.
