A father who exposed himself to his four-year-old son was handed a suspended jail term yesterday.

She found the version given by the girlfriend to be more credible

They were in the man’s Skoda Forman when, according to his girlfriend, he unzipped his trousers and said to the boy: “Look, when you grow up, you will have one like this.”

The incident happened in April 2009 at the Ta’ Xbiex yacht marina.

He then tried to grope the woman but she rebuffed his advances and told him to stop doing such silly things in the boy’s presence.

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli noted that there were discrepancies in what the witnesses had said with regard to what the child had told his mother about the incident.

Magistrate Demicoli said she found the version given by the girlfriend to be more credible in view of the discrepancies in the witnesses’ testimony when it came to what the boy had said.

She noted that, in its final submissions, the prosecution also seemed to agree with the version given by the girlfriend.

The boy’s parents were going through a separation when, usually, the parties focus on some damaging detail and take full advantage of it, the magistrate said.

Before sentencing, the man’s lawyers requested that his two police statements be removed from the records of the case and not taken into consideration because he did not have access to a lawyer before these were taken.

The magistrate upheld the request and sentenced the man to a 24-month prison term suspended for three years.