Two plead guilty to stealing perfume

Two 35-year-old Bulgarian women were yesterday given a three-month jail term suspended for a year for stealing perfumes on Saturday.

Nikolinka Nikolaeva Ilieva and Sonya Nacheva Dimitrova pleaded guilty to stealing the perfumes from Frank's Perfumery situated in the Plaza Shopping Complex, in Sliema.

Magistrate Miriam Hayman heard Inspector Michael Mallia, prosecuting, request that a severe punishment be handed down.

He explained that the police had been receiving several reports of pickpockets and shoplifters particularly in the Sliema and Valletta areas.

He also said the police had established that Bulgarian nationals had been coming to Malta, without the money to sustain their stay, and were "earning their living through stealing".

But Mark Busuttil, who was appointed legal aid for the women, rebutted saying the prosecution had generalised and it had not proven that the women were pickpockets or that they had a tainted criminal record.

Dr Busuttil said the two women had been charged with simple theft and that if a message was to be transmitted to society it had to be in proportion to what was being alleged "without making sacrificial lambs of the two foreigners".

Magistrate Hayman ruled that since no proof of the value of the stolen perfumes or of the women's criminal record had been provided and since they filed a guilty plea at an early stage of the proceeding, a suspended jail term was appropriate.