A man originally sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing an elderly couple 15 years ago has had his sentence annulled for a second time.

Christopher Scerri was cleared on appeal over a technical shortcoming in the judgment.

Scerri, who is now 46, was originally charged alongside his partner in crime Freddie Delia over the robbery which took place at around 7:45am on September 6, 2009 at the elderly couple’s Żabbar home.

The two suspects were subsequently charged with aggravated theft. Scerri was separately charged with breaching a suspended sentence, a probation order and also relapsing.

They were convicted by a Magistrates’ Court, but that judgment was annulled following an appeal lodged by Scerri.

In 2019 he was sent back to the Magistrates’ Court for his case to be decided again.

Another Magistrates’ Court delivered judgment in 2020, confirming Scerri’s conviction on all charges and condemning him to a seven-year jail term.

He got two years for the Żabbar robbery, two years for a previous suspended sentence, one year for another suspended sentence and two years for breaching the terms of a conditional discharge.

Scerri again appealed that sentence.

The first argument put forward by his lawyers was that the judgment was null since the Magistrates’ Court had not cited one of the articles of law in terms of which the accused was found guilty.

In terms of article 382 of the Criminal Code, when delivering judgment the court “shall state the facts of which [the accused] has been found guilty, shall award punishment and shall quote the article of this code or of any other law creating the offence.”

In this case, the operative part of the judgment did not cite the article on the basis of which Scerri was found guilty of breaching the conditional discharge.

While declaring that Scerri was guilty of all offences as charged, the Magistrate cited the relative provisions of law but not those related to the breach of the conditional discharge.

The Court of Criminal Appeal, presided over by Mr Justice Neville Camilleri, made reference to a long line of caselaw on such technical shortcomings in the judgment, such as quoting the wrong article or law or failing to quote the article.

These shortcomings may also be flagged by the court ex officio, observed the judge.

In light of a similar defect in Scerri’s sentence, the court upheld the appeal, annulled the judgment and sent the records back to the Magistrates’ Court for judgment to be delivered again.

In line with jurisprudence on the subject, the court declared that the appellant was to be placed in the same position he had been in immediately prior to sentencing.

Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Adreana Zammit were counsel to the appellant.