A mother of four who was reported missing three weeks ago was remanded in custody yesterday and charged with stealing a laptop to sustain a drug habit.

Charmaine Vella, 38, is unemployed and receiving state aid to help her bring up the children, who are not in her care. She had been missing for the last three weeks.

Yesterday she pleaded not guilty to stealing an HP laptop worth €944 on August 7 at around 5 p.m. from Ultimate in San Ġwann and relapsing.

Police Inspector Raymond Cassar said that although she had an address, the last time the police checked the premises all they found were cobwebs and there was no sign that anyone lived there.

He argued that bail should not be granted as it would be close to impossible to find her if she did not turn up again.

Magistrate Edwina Grima noted that there were not enough guarantees to ensure that she would follow the bail conditions and remanded her in custody.

Lawyer Mark Busuttil appeared for Ms Vella.

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.