Visitor damages ATM after downing nine pints of beer

A Briton was given a suspended jail term yesterday when he admitted to damaging a Bank of Valletta cash machine in a fit of drunken anger after the ATM took his card 10 days earlier.

Adrian Terrance Attard, 43, was given a 13-month jail term suspended for two years after he pleaded guilty to damaging the ATM in St Paul’s Bay last Monday afternoon. He caused about €4,000 worth of damage to the machine.

“I had nine pints of beer in me. I was returning to the hotel and saw a metal bar on the floor when walking past the machine,” Mr Attard told Magistrate Silvio Meli, explaining that he then used the bar to smash the ATM.

He said the cash machine, in Horatio Nelson Street, had taken his bank card 10 days earlier. When Mr Attard contacted BOV, he was told his card had been accidentally returned to the UK. He thus asked his girlfriend to wire him money from the UK, which she did. But he could not withdraw it. “I had no money. I could not pay the hotel, buy food or water,” Mr Attard said.

On February 7, he met another Briton who bought him nine pints of beer while listening to his story, and, on his way back to his hotel in Buġibba, Mr Attard damaged the machine. He was identified by the police through footage from the bank’s CCTV system.

Defence lawyer Renzo Porsella Flores described it as “an unfortunate” incident and explained his client was ready to repay the cost of repairs in full.

Apart from the suspended jail term, the court ordered Mr Attard to repay all the expenses, including the fees incurred by the court appointed experts.

Police Inspector Edmund Cuschieri prosecuted