A judge who is also a former chairman of the tourism authority has highlighted the damage bag-snatching was doing to the tourism industry.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono said the huge tourism promotion efforts by the country, at a considerable cost and investment, were being ruined by a few and the whole country suffered for their actions.

He made the comments in an appeal judgment in the case of a man, Victor Buttigieg, whose eight-month jail term for robbing two Dutch women he reduced by two.

Mr Buttigieg was jailed in December after he was found guilty of robbing the women in Qawra in June, 1999.

He snatched their handbags that contained items worth below €233. He appealed the judgment arguing that the Magistrates' Court had found him guilty of stealing items worth more than €233 when this was not the case.

Thus, the punishment meted out to him was too harsh, Mr Buttigieg argued.

The appeal court established that the value of the contents of the women's handbags in fact did not exceed €233. Mr Justice Galea Debono said this merited a lighter punishment and so cut the jail term by two months.