‘Don’t lose your chance to reform’

A former drug trafficker who was recently released from prison after serving 12 years pleaded guilty yesterday to being an accomplice in the theft of two beach bags last month.

Sandro Mifsud, 37, of St Paul’s Bay, was placed under probation for two years and told by Magistrate Doreen Clarke that this was an opportunity for him to start a new life and cut ties with people who had been leading him astray.

He could not kick the drug habit alone and needed help from a residential drug rehabilitation programme, she added.

Raising his finger to speak, Mr Mifsud said he only had one worry and that was leaving his mother alone at home.

The magistrate asked her to come forward from the public gallery and told her that all of her help would still not be enough and that he needed the drug rehabilitation programme to completely kick the habit.

Also present were the two Spanish victims of the crime. One in particular kept looking at Mr Mifsud, shaking her head.

At the end of the judgment, Mr Mifsud was called to the bench and the magistrate was again heard telling him not to waste the opportunity he had now been given.

At that point the same Spanish woman asked if it was not illegal for him to speak to the magistrate, who replied that once the case was over, it certainly wasn’t.