Man with 'biblical' criminal record jailed for Tarxien break-in

A 35-year-old, with a criminal record “of biblical proportions”, was jailed for three years after he was found guilty of breaking into a Tarxien outreach centre and stealing over €7,322 worth of IT equipment.

Tarquin Vella, a Birżebbuġa resident, was identified after a matching fingerprint of his left little finger was found on the scene of the crime.

The theft took place between September 29 and October 2 2022, at the Reach Out Centre in Tarxien, owned by the Tarxien Local Council. 

Thieves broke into the centre by forcing open a bathroom window at the rear of the building, leaving shoe marks on a sink below the window and fingerprints. 

They then forced open a locked cabinet and stole 10 HP laptops, 10 chargers and 10 Logitech mice. The thieves removed serial numbers from the laptop packaging and left the empty boxes at the scene.

Through forensic analysis, police matched the fingerprint with Vella’s left little finger.

Admits to theft

Following the fingerprint match, Vella was interrogated in October 2023.  He waived his right to a lawyer during interrogation.

He admitted that he and an accomplice, Sheldon Micallef, had stolen from the premises. In his statement to the police, Vella said Micallef sold the stolen items and claimed he received €200 as his share of the proceeds.

The defence challenged both the admissibility of the confession and the strength of the forensic evidence. lawyers argued that Vella’s waiver of his right to legal assistance had not been properly recorded, making his statement invalid. They pointed out that the document produced was missing a second witness signature and that two different, contradictory waiver documents existed.

They also argued that the fingerprint evidence found at the scene was insufficient and not enough to secure a conviction. They added that the centre was accessible to the public and that Vella was known to work at and frequent the centre, making his fingerprint easy to explain.

The lawyers also pointed out that there was no CCTV evidence to strengthen the police's investigations.

The court rejected these arguments and found the combination of forensic evidence and Vella’s confession sufficient to prove his guilt. The court acknowledged two versions of the waiver existed, one irregular and one regular, yet it highlighted that the defence had exempted the prosecution from calling the police officers who witnessed the waiver to testify.

Criminal record of ‘biblical proportions’

The court described Vella’s criminal history as being of “biblical proportions”, with a long list of prior convictions.

The prosecution presented 18 previous sentences or court documents between 2019 and 2021 to prove he was a recidivist.  In 2019, he was sentenced to one term of two months of effective detention and two separate terms of one month of effective imprisonment. He had received a three-month prison sentence suspended for one year in March 2021, and four months later, he was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment suspended for two years.

Vella's burglary of the Tarxien centre occurred while that nine-month period, making him a recidivist.

The court found that the theft was aggravated on three grounds: the use of force to enter, the value of the stolen items and the time of the offence, which took place at night.

In the final judgment delivered on March 17, the court sentenced Vella to three years' imprisonment and ordered him to refund the sum of €7,322.50 to the Tarxien local council, the estimated value of the stolen laptops and related equipment. He was given six months to pay the sum.

He was also ordered to pay a total of €1,709.48 for court expenses within two years.

Separate proceedings were ordered in relation to the breach of his earlier suspended sentence.

Magistrate Nadine Sant Lia presided. Lawyer Nicholas Mifsud acted as the defence. AG lawyer Joseph Camilleri Azarov and police inspector Antonello Magri prosecuted.