Police officers who searched an alleged thief’s home found a cache of stolen electronics under the water tank on a neighbouring roof, court heard on Wednesday. 

Proceedings continued in the case against 54-year-old Paul Spagnol, who pled not guilty to burgling a San Ġwann residence in February. 

Inspector Jean Paul Attard said that the residents of the house called the police after they came back home and noticed that their cat had been locked out on the balcony, which they had not done themselves before leaving the house. 

Once indoors, the residents found their home in disarray and discovered that three Apple laptops, Beats by Dre headphones, an Apple watch as well as the keys to a motorcycle were missing. 

When searching for the missing laptops through the Find My iPhone app, the residents reported that the electronics were pinging at a location on Triq il Ballut, also in San Ġwann, Attard said. 

Through CCTV footage, the police noticed that the person casing the burgled residence appeared to be wearing similar clothing to what the accused was wearing when he was previously in police custody on a separate accusation of theft. 

Following this, Attard continued, police obtained a warrant and went to search Spagnol’s residence in Triq il-Ballut. The accused was not at home at the time, but the police nonetheless carried out a search in the presence of his son. The search yielded two jackets and two baseball caps that were allegedly worn during the break-in. 

While still at Spagnol’s house, Attard said, Inspector Jonathan Ransley was informed by the control room that an anonymous tip had come in from someone who had seen the accused hiding things on the roof of his building. 

After going up to search Spagnol’s roof as well as those of the surrounding property, Attard said that the cache of stolen items was found wrapped in a bag and stashed under a water tank on a neighbour’s roof. 

Police were unable to question Spagnol properly until February 16, Attard said, as at several points while he was in police custody he expressed that he was in pain and was admitted to Mater Dei hospital twice. 

“Was he admitted to hospital because of a drug problem,” interjected defence lawyer Noel Bianco, who appeared for the accused. 

“No,” Attard replied, “he said he was experiencing chest pains”. 

Spagnol was remanded in custody.

The case will continue on September 6.