Conċetta Charles, who became notorious for her handling of adoptions from Pakistan, is in prison after failing to reimburse an adoptive couple whose plans failed.

Ms Charles has had a string of cases in court all related to misappropriation after allegedly failing to pay money back to prospective adoptive parents who would have handed her thousands of euros to get children from Pakistan. She was acquitted in some of the case but convicted in others.

In one case, Ms Charles had testified that she had set up the New United Christian Foundation in 1988 to help children in Pakistan and, together with her husband, Dennis, a Pakistani-born Maltese national, started getting children for Maltese couples to adopt.

In 2003, a Karachi newspaper, Dawn Metropolitan, reported that Mr Charles had admitted to smuggling children out of Pakistan to take them to Maltese couples. It said the Pakistani police in Gulshan-i-Iqbal had received letters alleging that four boys and seven girls were being kept in a bungalow in the area after being smuggled out of state-run and private hospitals.

Ms Charles said that her husband had been convicted by a Pakistani court and jailed for seven years. The conviction was overturned and he was acquitted by a Human Rights Commission.

She said that once the case was cleared they started getting children to Malta once again. Matters got complicated in October 2005 and there were difficulties in refunding couples after an earthquake hit Kashmir, where the couple’s lawyer lived. Ms Charles said that she had to dismiss the foundation’s administrator, accusing him of stealing funds from the foundation.

In the latest case, Lawrence and Maria Grima had sued Ms Charles and her husband over €7,000, which they had paid to get a child. They said that, in July 2002, they had signed a contract with her to adopt a girl but the child never arrived.

Magistrate Dennis Montebello, who had presided over the case, had ordered Ms Charles to return to the couple the money they had paid.

A criminal case was also opened by the police, charging her with misappropriating the money. She had been found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison suspended for two years, which was confirmed on appeal.

The Grimas eventually complained to the court that they had still not received the money owed to them and Mr Justice Michael Mallia ordered that the jail term be brought into effect.

In June 2011, Ms Charles was twice acquitted of misappropriation. In one case, the court ruled that she had carried out her contractual duties during an adoption.

In the second case, an appeals judge overturned a guilty plea and found her not guilty of misappropriation on grounds that she had every intention of paying the money back.

The judge also ruled that the dispute was a matter for the civil courts to consider.