A man has been sentenced to fifteen months behind bars after admitting to continuing to annoy his former partner, even after the Court had ordered him not to approach her.
31-year-old Clifford Gatt Baldacchino, a former footballer with the Maltese national team, had been charged with committing these crimes on 28th August, when he had used electronic equipment in order to frighten and annoy his former partner.
All this was carried out within less than six days after he had been given a suspended sentence by the Court and had been ordered not to approach the woman.
This fact had been taken into consideration by the Court in reaching a decision. The court, Magistrate Ian Farrugia presiding, also considered the fact that the crime is a serious one and falls within the parameters of domestic violence legislation.
Gatt Baldacchino was accordingly handed down a nine-month sentence and fined 1,000 euro, after the previous month’s suspended sentence had been changed to a six-month sentence. Accused was also ordered not to approach his former partner for a five-year period.
[source]Wonder how this will affect Gzira United...
I know him from his Sliema days (coincidentally Facebook tells me we became friends 6 years ago today) and I think he's a good guy who made a stupid mistake. The law is the law and you can't expect not to go to prison after breaching the conditions of a suspended sentence after less than a week. It's the third time in less than two weeks that he ended up in court over the same situation. The suspended sentence was given the second time, just one day after he was ordered not to approach her, and he violated it again despite that second chance warning.
That said love can make people do some pretty stupid things and I can't help thinking there should be appropriate punishments enshrined in law for cases like this which do not involve prison time but some form of therapy and maybe house arrest.