A Żurrieq man was yesterday handed a suspended sentence for sending raunchy text messages to his 15-year-old Gozitan female relative.

The man – a half-brother of the girl’s mother – was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment suspended for four years after he pleaded guilty before Magistrate Paul Coppini to sending a number of sexually explicit text messages to the girl.

The man, 32, whose name cannot be published by court order to protect the identity of the victim, exchanged around 20 text messages with the girl for a number of days.

The mother discovered the sexy exchange by chance when she saw a message on her daughter’s mobile phone and immediately confronted her half-brother.

He offered an apology, but the woman filed a police report, sources told The Sunday Times.

The man was arraigned at the court in Gozo yesterday morning where he also pleaded guilty to corruption of minors, harassment and misusing technology.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.