A 34-year-old woman convicted of loitering for prostitution purposes suffered from an eating disorder and depression, leading her to take drugs, a psychiatrist said in court.

Joseph Spiteri said the woman – who was his client for about five years at Corradino Correctional Facility and at Mount Carmel Hospital – went through phases of gaining and losing weight.

This yo-yoing in weight was linked to her taking drugs and the people she hung around with at the time, he told Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera.

The magistrate took this into consideration, sentencing the woman to one year’s imprisonment for loitering and relapsing.

The woman was cleared of stealing about €11,000 from a client.

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

He told the police he was driving through Gżira when he recognised the woman. She signalled to him to slow down.

He stopped his van and they agreed on a price for sex. She got into the vehicle and they drove to her apartment in San Ġwann. 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, which his business partner had given to him that Sunday afternoon to invest in a new business involving wine and coffee machines.

He was waiting until Monday to deposit the money, he said. When he was getting dressed, the envelope fell out of his pocket and the woman told him to pick it up.

She often slept with her wallet and mobile phone under her pillow as she feared her children would steal them

There was no one else in the apartment, although there was a brown cat on the bed. Later that evening, after taking the woman back to Gżira, the man went home and realised that about €11,000 was missing from the envelope.

In her testimony, the woman said she knew the man because they both hailed from Valletta, and their families knew each other, too. 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.

One the day in question, she said she gave in when he turned up in Gżira. They went to her apartment and he gave her €50. There was no one at home, since her live-in partner had been arrested.

She denied stealing the money and said she remembered seeing a brown envelope fall out of the man’s pocket before they left and she drew his attention to it.

The magistrate also heard the woman’s mother say two of her children took drugs and she often slept with her wallet and mobile phone under her pillow, fearing her children would steal them.

Her daughter had had a drug problem that escalated when she started going out with the wrong man. She had attended three drug rehabilitation programmes.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera noted that the prosecution had failed to prove the theft charge beyond reasonable doubt. The man’s version of events contained many inconsistencies, especially regarding to the amount of cash stolen.

The police had not brought the man’s business partner to testify, and it was a known fact that bank deposit machines were available 24 hours a day. Besides, the man never saw the woman take the money and did not produce evidence as to where he had been before meeting her.

In light of this, the court cleared the woman of theft but found her guilty of loitering and relapsing.

Even though the woman is young, she had some 20 previous convictions on her record and an effective jail term was deemed appropriate.

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

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