A 20-year-old man was today acquitted of having threatened  his friend's mother after hacking her son's hi-5 account.

Edmond Attard, of Mellieha was accused of having committed the crime two years ago.

The mother, Mariella Attard, told the court that she had filed a police report after somebody hacked her son's hi-5 account and wrote offensive words.

She said she had spoken to a police inspector at the Police Cyber Crime Unit and an officer at Qawra police station, who told her that it was the accused who had hacked the account.

Her son, Kurt, also took the witness stand. He said he knew the accused but had never spoken to him about this incident.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri-Herra acquitted Mr Attard due to lack of evidence.

It later resulted that the charge sheet had mistakes - the date of the crime was shown as happening in 2010 not in 2009. Furthermore the charge included threatening Mrs Attard when such threats did not result and, in any case it was Kurt Attard who was the victim, not his mother.

Dr Gabrielle Zammit was defence counsel.