An 85-year-old man slept in his locked bedroom while the rest of his house was ransacked, a court has been told.

"I got the biggest shock of my life," Carmelo Calleja recounted in court as he described how he locked his bedroom at 8pm on March 25, 2012 and went to sleep. When he got up the following morning, he was shocked to find his house ransacked, with drawers and clothes thrown to the floor in a room near his bedroom and the rooms downstairs.

The front door had been forced open and a carpenter charged him €100 to repair it.

Nothing was stolen however.

"There was nothing to take, I live off my pension," Mr Calleja told Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit. He said he had not heard anything through the night. 

The accused, Victor Fenech, a 47-year-old unemployed man, denied involvement and insisted he had never gone to Mr Calleja's house.

Police, however, produced evidence showing Mr Fenech's palm print on the back of one of Mr Calleja's armchairs.

The court, on the basis of the scientific evidence, found Mr Fenech guilty of the attempted theft and of being a recidivist, having been convicted of a previous theft.

He was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and ordered to pay court costs of €745.45.