Two jail terms cut by a year

Two men who had been jailed for five years and four years respectively for breaking into 16 establishments between 1989 and 1991 have had their jail terms reduced by one year on appeal.

The 29-year-old men, whose names are not being published since they were minors at the time of the commission of the crime, were found guilty of stealing items worth thousands of liri from 13 factories, a jewellery shop, a discotheque and a private residence between December 12, 1989 and February 18, 1991 and breaching the conditions of a previous release.

One of the men was found guilty of stealing four cars and driving without a licence while the other was charged with stealing three cars. The former was jailed for five years while the latter was jailed for four.

Both men appealed claiming that the Magistrates' Court's judgment, handed down in 1995, had not taken into account their young age and the fact that they had cooperated with the police.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono noted that, in retrospect, he could tell that the man who had been jailed for five years had not changed his ways after being found guilty of the spate of thefts.

Since 1991 he had been given 29 jail sentences and when he was released from prison after a considerable amount of time, he committed "the most serious crime in his career of criminality," that is, murder.

As for the other man, he too had not changed his ways as he had 43 convictions on his criminal record.

After evaluating the circumstances of the cases the judge ruled that although the Magistrates' Court's judgment fell within the parameters prescribed by law, he had doubts as to whether the magistrate had taken the defendants' young age into account.

Mr Justice Galea Debono reduced both jail terms by a year.