Four Italian students who went for a naked swim in front of about 1,000 people in St George’s Bay early yesterday morning were handed down suspended jail terms a few hours later, with the magistrate stressing the need to retain “decency and decorum” in the country.

The men, Gennaro Origlietti, 20, Mario Coppola, 18, Giovanni D’Elena, 20 and Antonio Merola, 20, stripped off and took to the water at around 3.30 a.m. after a night out drinking.

In court yesterday, standing sheepishly in the dock and craning their necks to listen to an interpreter, the men admitted to offending public morals and swimming naked.

Legal aid lawyer Joseph Ellis told Magistrate Gabriella Vella that following a similar case earlier this week, there had been a plethora of comments questioning if the police were wasting their time arraigning these people.

Interjecting, the magistrate said there was the need to keep “decency and decorum” in the country.

Police Superintendent Stephen Gatt added that if one were to visit the Trevi Fountain in Rome, one would not act irresponsibly, as in this situation.

Inspector Malcolm Bondin said the police had received numerous reports about this incident and that there were some 1,000 people on the St Julians beach at the time.

The reports were made by people who felt insulted by the men’s actions and the inspector asked the court to take this into consideration when handing down judgment.

Magistrate Vella gave the men a one-month jail term suspended for two years and also fined them €100 each.

On Thursday, two young Spanish men were handed down a similar sentence for skinny dipping at the same beach the previous Tuesday, raising a fierce debate among readers of timesofmalta.com as to whether the sentence had been too harsh and whether the two should have been charged at all.