Jail term for hold-up reduced

One of two men who were originally jailed for four years for stealing some Lm18,000 in a hold-up at a steel import company yesterday had his jail term reduced to three years and three months on appeal.

Aaron Cassar, 24, whose jail term was reduced, and Noel Frendo, 28, both of St Paul's Bay had been jailed for four years each for stealing cash and other items from Vibro Blocks Limited in Zebbug on February 8, 2002.

Frendo had filed a guilty plea while Cassar had pleaded not guilty. Eventually, both were convicted of holding Vibro Blocks owner Raymond Vassallo against his will, using violence to compel him to do their bidding and carrying a firearm at the time of the commission of a crime.

The men were also convicted of stealing Giuseppe Muscat's Subaru van, tools and other items from a Mosta garage on the night of February 6, 2002, and causing over Lm50 damage to his van and garage door.

Frendo admitted to committing the crimes during the operative time of a suspended jail term and relapsing while Cassar was cleared of a count of theft, breaching probation and relapsing.

Both appealed claiming that the jail term handed down was excessive.

Frendo argued that it did not make sense to be jailed for as long as Cassar, when he had filed an early guilty plea and Cassar had not.

Cassar, on the other hand, argued that it was not fair that he was penalised for not filing a guilty plea, and besides, his criminal record was not as bad as Frendo's.

Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono, in the Appeals Court, noted that in both cases the four-year jail term handed down by the first court was a just one in light of the offences they had been charged with.

In fact, the punishment was skewed towards the minimum rather than the maximum prescribed by law.

In the case of Frendo, the judge ruled that his criminal record was balanced by his early guilty plea.

However, when the two jail terms were compared, in Cassar's case the first court did not differentiate between the two different scenarios and take certain factors into account. For this reason there was room for a reduction in the jail term.