A 26-year-old man was yesterday given a suspended jail term after he smashed a glass in a man’s face in a bar six years ago.

The police were called to Golden Line bar in Żebbuġ on January 10, 2004 after Jonathan Spiteri, then 20 years old, hit Daemer Bartolo with a glass. Mr Bartolo had to have four stitches to the bridge of his nose.

Mr Spiteri claimed that Mr Bartolo had started the fight over the music that was being played in the bar but Mr Bartolo alleged that just as he walked out of the toilet Mr Spiteri approached him and smashed the glass in his face.

Magistrate Jacqueline Pad-ovani said that the evidence produced indicated that Mr Bartolo had tried to calm Mr Spiteri down after he had been involved in a fight with his own friends. She said this did not warrant the aggressiveness with which the accused had acted and neither was he acting in self-defence, as he had claimed.

Taking this into consideration together with the fact that she had to consider him a first-time offender because the prosecution failed to present his police record, she handed down a one-year jail term suspended for three years.