A private investigator has been handed a two-month suspended jail term and fined €2,400 for working without a licence after he himself complained to the police that a man he had followed for two weeks in a marriage separation case had suddenly turned up at his home.

Vincent Oliver Abela was accused of working as a private investigator and employing others to work as private investigators without a licence.

He was also accused of having harassed the man he had followed for two weeks.

The court heard that Mr Abela was the managing director of O Abela International Investigators and claimed he had worked as a private investigator for 25 years, albeit without a licence issued by the Police Commissioner.

In a case which dates backto 2006, the private investigator was engaged by a woman to monitor her husband, who, she feared, was seeing another woman.

The investigator tailed the man and eventually drew up a report which was presented and accepted by the Family Court in separation proceedings.

The man who had been tailed did not know of the monitoring until the report was presented to the Family Court. But he then turned up at the private investigator’s home, and asked to speak to him. He was not there, and he only spoke to his wife.

Mr Abela complained to the police requesting them to warn the man and not  approach him in any manner.

But a police inspector then interrogated Mr Abela and took him to court, accusing him of working without a licence.

In his defence, Mr Abela argued there was no specific legislation to regulate private investigators, and he had even drafted legislation which he proposed to subsequent governments. He also claimed that even senior police officers commissioned him to do some work, and the Family Court had accepted his report in the current case.

Magistrate Marse-Ann Farrugia, however, said the senior police officers and the Family Court may not have known that he was working without out a licence.

Furthermore, the licence requirement for private investigators could be found within the Private and Local Wardens Act. Several professions did not have ad hoc legislation, even the legal profession.

The court found Mr Abela guilty of having worked without a licence.

However, he was not guilty of harassment because in following the other man, he had not caused him fear or anxiety. He had not known about him until the proceedings in the Family Court.

In handing down judgment, the magistrate noted that Mr Abela had 15 previous convictions, including traffic violations, slandering and threatening two policemen, harassment, and another conviction of having worked without a licence.

This showed he had scant respect for the law and the authorities, the court said.