Jail term reduced on appeal

A two-month jail term for a man who failed to pay his estranged wife alimony was yesterday reduced to 10 days on appeal.

Anthony Gauci was originally found guilty of breaching a court order to pay his wife Anne Marie Lm100 a month in alimony between March 2 and March 22 and breaching the conditions of a previous release.

He was jailed for two months by the Magistrates' Court.

But Gauci filed an appeal, claiming it was impossible for him to abide by the order and the Magistrates' Court had not let him bring evidence to explain why he could not pay.

But Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano ruled, on appeal, that Gauci had not even tried to give evidence or produce it and he was not going to allow him to do it at the appeal stage because the appeal court was simply a court of revision.

He still adjusted the punishment down to 10 days after noting that Gauci had a clean criminal record. The judge remarked however he did not have much sympathy for the manner in which Gauci had breached a court order.

A separate judgment, in which Gauci was fined Lm25 for failing to pay his wife alimony between March 22 and April 5 was confirmed.