A “good, 14-year-old boy” from Somalia with ambitions to work in the IT industry yesterday received a suspended jail term for trying to leave Malta with a forged French passport.

The boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, appeared in court with his social worker, who told Magistrate Carol Peralta this was the teenager’s first run-in with the law.

Police Inspector Darren Buhagiar said the boy had a friend in Italy who gave him the passport for €120. He tried to leave yesterday morning.

Magistrate Peralta asked the boy what he wanted to do when he grew up and he said he wanted to work in IT. The magistrate sentenced him to one year in jail, suspended for two years, and told him to keep studying to make something of himself.