A 37-year-old man from Msida was jailed for 22-and-a-half months and fined €1,200 after pleading guilty to having seven sachets of cocaine in circumstances denoting they were not for his personal use.

The court said Vincent Cucciardi had been given several chances to get his life back on the right track, including four conditional discharges, reprimands and fines.

Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras heard that, on July 10, 2012, Mr Cucciardi was caught with 20 grams of cocaine divided into seven sachets.

The circumstances in which the drugs were found indicated to the investigators that they were meant for trafficking.

He was also charged with committing the crime within 100 metres from a place frequented by young people.

In her judgment, the magistrate said the accused could not benefit from a reduction in the punishment because the guilty plea was filed almost two years after he was arraigned and after he had “wasted the court’s time and police resources”. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

When considering the charge of breach a conditional discharge given to him in 2009 as punishment for causing wilful damage, the court sentenced Mr Cucciardi to an additional four-and-a-half-months in jail. Police Inspector Nikolai Sant prosecuted.