Jail sentence confirmed on appeal

The chief justice yesterday called on the judiciary not to commission pre-sentencing inquiry reports unnecessarily, saying that it was at times obvious that the defendant, once convicted, merited a jail term.

"Statistics show that probation officers have a bigger workload than they can reasonably cope with and it is not fair to waste their time commissioning reports simply because the defence makes such a request when it is mostly meant to delay the proceedings," Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano said.

He made the remarks in the Court of Criminal Appeal as he confirmed a Magistrates' Court judgment jailing a man for 15 months for asking a friend to set fire to his boat to collect insurance.

Joseph Muscat, 34, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and perjury in August 2000 but appealed saying, among other things, that the punishment was too harsh.

Chief Justice De Gaetano noted that the file of proceedings showed that a pre-sentencing inquiry report had been commissioned and the probation officer had suggested a suspended sentence and a supervision order but Muscat could not have been given a suspended sentence because he committed the crime during the operative term of a conditional discharge.

Muscat was also sentenced to a general interdiction of five years.