A 20-year-old youth was today jailed for 13 months after he admitted stealing from a restaurant in Għar Lapsi last month.

Keithien Borg, from Ħamrun, was also charged with damaging third party property, breaching three probation orders and relapsing.

His accomplice, a 17-year-old teenager, who cannot be named by court order, was last week spared jail in favour of an 18-month probation order.

While the defendants claimed that they only found €40 in the restaurant’s cash register, the owners insisted €2,000 went missing.

Delivering judgment, Magistrate Doreen Clarke noted that despite several probation orders and a period of incarceration, the youth did not learn a thing – so much so that he even committed the crime a few months after he serving a jail term.

The court decided not to punish him for breaching his three probation orders in hope that he would continue to benefit from his probation officer’s help once he served his term.

The court recommended that he be detained at the Young Offenders Unit Rehabilitation Services (YOURS).