Dom Mintoff’s biographer, Josef Grech, has been spared 20 months in jail after being cleared of defrauding suppliers and consultants of a Paola band club.

An appeal court ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove his intention to commit the crime while the conflicting evidence meant the first court could not have found guilt.

Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera was ruling on an appeal filed by Grech over a sentence of 20 months in prison handed down in April 2015.

Grech was an official of the Lourdes Philharmonic Society of Paola at the time.

Grech, from Marsascala, who set up the Dom Mintoff Foundation as homage to the former prime minister, was found guilty of defrauding musicians engaged on behalf of the society by paying them with post-dated cheques from accounts that had been closed.

The alleged crimes took place in February 2010 and the preceding months.

Another alleged victim was George Cassar who sold a number of mobile phones and a laptop to Grech.

Cassar told the first court that initially he was paid with two cheques addressed to someone else but Grech then changed them and gave him other cheques which were post-dated.

However, the cheques were issued from an account that no longer existed.

The court jailed Grech for a year and added eight months after bringing into effect an eight-month suspended jail term over a different case decided in May 2010.

However, Madam Justice Scerri Herrera said that the evidence presented in court was conflicting and as a result, the first court could never have found him guilty.

She said that the prosecution had not managed to prove that Grech had the intention to defraud the victims.