A man was conditionally discharged yesterday after misappropriating a grandfather clock that he thought was broken and was going to be scrapped.

Noel Attard, 46, from Pembroke, took the clock from a flat he was renting, claiming the owner had said it was broken and she wanted to get rid of it.

However, Mr Attard did not ask permission before transferring it to his garage in Pembroke.

The court, presided over by Magistrate Doreen Clarke, heard the man, who was separating from his wife, had rented out an apartment and a garage in St Paul’s Bay from Suzanne D’Arcy between 2006 and 2010.

He had permission to move items he did not need from the apartment to the garage. But when he moved out, the clock was not in either place and the police launched an investigation. In one of his statements to the police, Mr Attard said he had taken the clock as a sort of guarantee, because the landlady still had to pay him for a television he had purchased and was leaving at the flat.

But the court ruled that this line of defence could not be believed since, throughout his second statement and also in his court testimony, Mr Attard consistently said he thought the clock was going to be thrown away.

Based on his testimony, Magistrate Clarke said Mr Attard had taken something he knew was not his, which amounted to misappropriation, but she cleared him of stealing the clock.

He was conditionally discharged for 18 months.

Police Inspector Therese Sciberras prosecuted.