Troubled youth admits to resisting police arrest

A teenager who had spent three years in an institute and has been neglected by his mother since he was 12, yesterday pleaded guilty to violently resisting arrest.

Wearing only one shoe and looking rather sorry for himself, the 17-year-old listened to Police Inspector Malcolm Bondin detail the boy's troubled youth.

The inspector, who has known the boy since he was 12, explained how he had been neglected and placed in an institute, which, however, he had to leave at 16 because of lack of space. He was now living with his grandmother.

Inspector Bondin said the youth used to be fed by friends in the neighbourhood and they would even call the police station asking for help because they had no space for him either.

His father had since died, his mother was in America and his 18-year-old sister was in Libya, the young man said when asked by Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit where the rest of his family were.

Police Inspector Nikolai Sant told the court that officers on patrol spotted the boy in St Julians at around midnight on Saturday banging on the shutter of a shop with a metal rod. They tried to stop him but he took off running and in the process knocked a policewoman to the ground.

Magistrate Stafrace Zammit asked him why he ran away, to which the young man replied that he was not the person who was banging. He ran away because he thought the police believed he was doing something illegal.

The magistrate replied that the police were there to help him and that he shouldn't look at them as enemies.

Legal aid lawyer Henry Azzopardi said his client would be pleading guilty to violently resisting arrest, threatening an officer, damaging a police uniform and slightly injuring the same officer when he knocked her to the ground.

Taking into consideration the circumstances of the case, the magistrate conditionally discharged him for two years and placed him under a supervision order to be monitored by a probation officer.