A woman ended up in court for the third day in a row yesterday, again charged with fraud over property rentals.

Annabelle Camilleri Monreal, 29, from Xemxija, was charged with defrauding a woman of €850 she paid as deposit for the rental of her grandfather’s property in Safi.

The alleged misappropriation took place in August when the complainant signed a contract with Ms Camilleri Monreal to rent a house in St Mary Street, Safi, which the accused told police was “donated” to her by her grandfather.

The complainant told police that despite paying the money and signing the contract, Ms Camilleri Monreal refused to give her the key to the house.

Ms Camilleri Monreal said the complainant had changed her mind and did not want to rent the property so she repaid her the €1,000 but refused to give her the €850 deposit.

Ms Camilleri Monreal’s lawyer, Noel Bianco, referred to arraignments on Thursday and Friday over the same alleged crimes which followed the same pattern. This qualified as a continuous crime so the police should merge all cases into one.

Ms Camilleri Monreal, who was last year arraigned over a scam involving Gozo farmhouses, was last month jailed for seven months after admitting defrauding an Englishman who paid her to rent an apartment which was not hers. She appealed the sentence.

On Thursday, Ms Camilleri Monreal was in court charged with defrauding six people this month, all related to the rental of properties.

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli on Friday jailed her for nine months and brought into effect a two-year suspended sentence. Even this was appealed.

But within a few hours she was back in court for defrauding another list of people. A police inspector said there were queues of people outside the Qawra police station, all waiting to file reports against her.