Caught in the act

A 21-year-old man who went to lodge a false report that he had lost his ID card was caught lying when this fell out of his wallet while he was about to sign the report.

Police Inspector Jeffrey Azzopardi said Jurgen Cassar went to file the report at the Valletta police station yesterday.

His badly bitten and partially torn card fell out onto the front desk of the station. He had told the police that he needed to change the card as he had bitten it and it was unusable.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera took into consideration the man’s clean police record and the fact that he was a first time offender and conditionally discharged him for one year.

BAIL FOR ILLEGALLY EMPLOYING GIRLFRIEND

A 61-year-old man was granted bail against a personal guarantee of €1,000 this morning after pleading not guilty to illegally employing his Moldovan girlfriend in Bugibba.

The girl is currently awaiting deportation.

WIRE THEFT LANDS MAN IN COURT

A man who stole 60 bundles of construction wire from the Midi Consortium in Sliema was this morning jailed two years suspended for four.

Sandro Lo Presti told the police that he had nowhere to hide the wire so he put the bundles under a tree.

When the police went to look for them, they only found seven bundles.

Taking into consideration his early guilty plea, the court handed down the suspended sentence.

MONEY LENDER GETS SUSPENDED SENTENCE

A man who admitted to lending money without a licence was this morning given a suspended jail term.

Angelo Zahra, 64, of Rabat told the Court he used to lend money without pressuring the borrowers about interest.

He was given a nine month mail term suspended for 1 year after he was found guilty of making profits to the detriment of financial authorities.

A driver in the civil service, Mr Zahra was in the past self-employed in the construction business.