A young man who mugged four elderly ladies within a ten-day span has had his punishment drastically increased after a court found that he had fallen back on old habits. 

Jacob Rakban, 23, had preyed upon four elderly ladies in Mosta and Rabat back in June 2016, snatching their gold necklaces and even slightly injuring one of the victims.

He had admitted to those crimes and was given a chance to get his life back on track by the magistrate's court, after a probation officer had testified that there appeared to be "a ray of hope" in the young man’s unruly life.

However, the positive turn was short lived and soon after the first judgment, the man lapsed back into his old habits.

Since then, Mr Rakban returned to drugs, got fired from his job, kicked out of his family home and is currently serving a jail term over an attempted theft. 

The Attorney General had appealed the judgment related to the four muggings, and on Friday got the tougher sentence it sought. 

READ: Bride made to pay as hungry wedding guests clean out plates

During appeal proceedings, the court observed that the first court had cited "extraordinary circumstances" in sparing Mr Rakban punishment within the legal parameters, which envisaged a maximum term of nine years imprisonment.

Since there had been evidence that the accused was on the right path, the first court had handed down a lifeline, the Court of Appeal observed.

Once the offender had not availed himself of this opportunity, Madam Justice Edwina Grima concluded that “only by imposing an effective jail term could justice be done not only with the victims and society at large but also with the accused himself whose only hope for rehabilitation lay within the confines of the Corradino Correctional Facility.”

The court therefore upheld the appeal and converted the three-year probation order into an effective jail term of eight years.