A 28-year-old man from Zejtun was this morning conditionally discharged for two years after pleading guilty to damaging a car and filing a false police report.

Clive Bianco, who used to be Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea’s driver, had, on December 24, filed a police report saying that someone had vandalised Mr Galea's official car.

Mr Galea had last seen the car the night before at around midnight when Mr Bianco drove him home.

Originally, Mr Bianco had told the police he had then gone to his brother’s house and stayed there till around 3 a.m. and then went home. He had said that in morning he found the car scratched and with obscene words written on it, dented and with two stones next to it.

However, when the police spoke to him and eventually to his brother they realised there were discrepancies and suspected he was not telling truth.

When they confronted him with the different versions he decided to tell the truth and explain that after he took Mr Galea home he had gone to Ghaxaq to meet a friend with whom he stayed until 3 a.m.

He then slept on the wheel while driving home and crashed into a rubble wall. He drove home but decided to go back to the place where he crashed. He told the police he had wanted to call them but was afraid of losing his job. So he got a stone and scratched the car to make it look like an act of vandalism.

He took the stone with him, parked and put stone next to car. He then filed the false police report the next morning.

On hearing his guilty plea, the court conditionally discharged him. It took into consideration the fact that he cooperated in the investigations, had filed an early guilty plea and that he had also lost his job.

Drs Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri were defence counsel.