Loan shark ‘threatened to kill my children’

A loan shark threatened to kill a man’s children or throw acid on them if he did not pay up, the emotional 41-year-old father claimed in court, yesterday.

Gaetan Gatt, 41 of Marsa, was testifying in his own arraignment on a charge of breaching bail conditions, for which he was jailed after a magistrate found him guilty.

Mr Gatt told Magistrate Antonio Vella that it was precisely these threats which caused him to breach the bail conditions when he failed to sign the bail book regularly at the police station and changed his address without informing the police.

He had been granted bail last month after pleading not guilty to defrauding a number of people.

He said he went into hiding at a hotel because the loan shark would have been waiting for him at the police station when he went to sign in and had even taken to going to his house looking for him.

At one point he raised his voice and said he had been beaten up by 11 people three times. He singled out one of the incidents as being near the Labour Party club in Ħamrun where, he claimed, no one had gone to help him.

He claimed that a woman, Yvonne Mckay, had wanted some €200 a day from him until he paid the loan shark back. He also received threats that if he didn’t pay up his children would be killed or acid would be thrown on them.

Police Inspector James Grech said he had offered Mr Gatt help to fight the loan shark and the usury that he had allegedly become a victim of, but it was to no avail. However, this was the first time he had heard of such serious threats.

Defence lawyer Malcolm Mifsud argued that his client had failed to comply precisely because of the threats.

Magistrate Vella jailed Mr Gatt for three months and revoked the previous bail decree. He also ordered that he remain under arrest even though he filed an immediate appeal.