A mother and son serving a total of 40 years in jail for their part in the death of a young drug addict have been charged with trafficking in prison.

Conċetta Decelis, 57, and Jason Decelis, 35, allegedly managed to get hold of cannabis resin and deliver it to another inmate, Carmen Spiteri, about a year-and-half ago.

It emerged in a previous sitting that Mr Decelis had given the small amount of cannabis to his mother, who then passed it on to Ms Spiteri.

The whole Decelis family was jailed in 2006 after the lifeless body of 18-year-old Rachael Bowdler was found in a field in the area known as Ras il-Ġebel on May 13, 2001.

During a trial by jury, the court heard that she and Jason Decelis, both drug addicts, were in his mother’s flat in Buġibba when she lost consciousness from a heroin overdose. Mr Decelis phoned his father in a panic.

Ms Decelis returned home from work at about 10.30pm to find her husband, from whom she was separated, tending to the unconscious stranger.

He left but Mrs Decelis tended to Ms Bowdler throughout the night. At one point, however, the girl stopped breathing and she and her son took her to a field in Mġarr where they left her on the ground.

Ms Decelis was jailed for 15 years and her son Jason for 25 in the first ever conviction in Malta for what is known as murder by omission.

Carmel Decelis, the father, was jailed for 18 months for involuntary homicide.