A boy of 16 who admitted to 13 hotel-room thefts was yesterday told off by a magistrate for having “caused irreparable damage to the country’s reputation”.

“No matter how young you are, these things are not done,” Magistrate Anthony Vella told the teenager as he sentenced him to two years in jail suspended for four years.

The boy, whose name cannot be published by court order, admitted to stealing some €8,000 worth of items from hotel rooms as a member of a gang of criminals who targeted hotels in the St Paul’s Bay area.

The stolen items included cash, mobile phones, digital cameras, laptops and other electronic equipment.

His defence lawyer, Abigail Bugeja, argued that her client was “passing through a bad patch in his life” and that bad company had led him astray. Her client had been “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

But Police Inspector Kurt Zahra said the boy had not committed one theft but 13, which meant he had 13 opportunities to reconsider his actions.

To this, the lawyer accused the prosecution of being after “the pound of flesh”.

The inspector replied that the thefts had been well planned and executed by a gang. The police had not yet succeeded in identifying all the people whose belongings had been stolen, as many had left the island.

A stolen laptop was found in the boy’s bedroom and the teenager told the court the other items had been distributed among the gang.