A 34-year-old woman was jailed for a year for loitering for prostitution purposes but was cleared of stealing about €11,000 from a client after a court ruled this had not been sufficiently proven.

The case dates back to May 13, 2013, at about 2.30am when a man went to the  Sliema police station and told the police that a prostitute had just stolen his money.

The man claimed that, that day - it was 1.30am on a Monday morning - he was driving through Gzira on his way home when he recognised the woman - who he knew - and she signalled to him to slow down.

He stopped the van and they agreed on a price for sex. She got into his van and they drove to her apartment in San Gwann.

He said he paid her €20 for 10 minutes of sexual favours. At the time, he had €75 in his pocket. He also had an envelope containing over €15,000 in cash - mostly €500 notes - which his business partner had given him that afternoon.

He said his business partner lent him the money to invest in a new business involving wine and coffee machines. He was waiting until Monday to deposit the money since he could not make the deposit on Sunday. Once deposited he could transfer the money overseas.

He that, when he was getting dressed, the envelope fell out of his pocket and the woman told him to pick it up. There was no one else in the apartment except for a brown cat that was on the bed. Later that evening, after dropping the woman off back in Gzira, he went home and realised that about €11,000 were missing from the envelope. He went to look for the woman in Gzira and at her apartment but did not find her so he filed a police report.

In her testimony, the woman said she had known the man before as they were both from Valletta and their families knew each other. He had been courting her for a long time and had been wanting to sleep with her. She also borrowed money from him to buy drugs, she said.

That day she gave in to him when he turned up in Gzira, they went to her apartment and he gave her €50. There was no one home since her partner, who she lived with, had been arrested. She denied stealing his money and said she remembered seeing a brown envelope fall out of his pocket before they left and she drew his attention to it.

The magistrate also heard the woman's mother say that two of her children took drugs and she often slept with her wallet and mobile phone under her pillow.

Her daughter had had a drug problem that escalated when she started going out with a man who was all bad news. She had attended three drug rehabilitation programmes.

Psychiatrist Joseph Spiteri said the woman had been his patient for about five years and he had seen her at the Corradino Correctional Facility and at Mount Carmel Hospital. She suffered from an eating disorder as well as depression - as a result of which she took drugs. At the time of his testimony she was drug free and doing well.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera noted that the prosecution had failed to prove the theft charge beyond reasonable doubt. This was because the version given by the man had inconsistencies especially when it came to the amount of cash stolen - the amounts varied in different parts of his testimony.

Besides, police had not brought his business partner to testify and  it was a known fact that bank deposit machines worked 24-hours a day.

She also questioned why he took the money with him when he went with a prostitute. Moreover, he never said he saw her take the money and did not produce evidence as to where he was before meeting her.

In light of this she cleared the woman of  theft but found her guilty of loitering and relapsing. Even thought the woman was young, she had some 20 previous convictions on her record so an effective jail term was appropriate.

The woman's name is not being published due to her state of mental health.

Police Inspectors Carlos Cordina and Trevor Micallef prosecuted while lawyer Joseph Brincat represented the woman.