Addict put on probation after mother pleads against prison term
'It will make his habit worse'
A mother yesterday pleaded with a magistrate not to send her son to jail, saying prison would make his drug habit worst.
"No, your honour, I am not seeing any progress," she told Magistrate Anthony Vella when asked whether her son was making any inroad in his bid to beat his habit.
"I don't want him free, but I don't want him to end up in jail because it will make his habit worse," she said sobbing.
"I would like you to order him to undergo a rehabilitation programme immediately.
"When he was there (in prison) previously, he would call me, asking me to put money in this man's and that man's account to pay for the drugs he was buying there," she continued.
The Magistrate was about to pass sentence in a case involving a number of thefts committed between April and June after 27-year-old Jurgen Xerri and 19-year-old Donna Camilleri admitted to the charges brought against them.
The Magistrate empathised with the mother's plea: "If the Corradino Correctional Facility were really correctional we would not need to make these legal summersaults but unfortunately it is not," he said in reaction to a legal argument between the prosecution and the defence regarding the sentence appropriate in the case.
Inspector Goeffrey Azzopardi countered, saying that the police were fighting drugs wherever they were present, but the Magistrate shot back with a question that remained unanswered: "Do you have any doubts?" he said, referring to the existence of drugs in prison.
Matters, in fact, were complicated by the fact that Mr Xerri was a relapser but in the end Magistrate Vella ordered both the accused to do three years of probation on condition that they graduate from a rehabilitation programme.
Mr Xerri told the court he was trying to rein in his drug habit and that he was even off the medication, usually a prerequisite to enter a rehabilitation programme.
Franco Debono appeared for the accused while Inspector Azzopardi prosecuted.