A woman who admitted to stealing over €3,000 in car stereos from a Tarxien store over several months was on Wednesday granted bail as she waits to be assessed over claims she suffers from kleptomania.
Kleptomania is a mental health condition where a person is unable to resist urges to steal items.
The 28-year-old from Xghajra, who has five children, was on Wednesday released from arrest pending a pre-sentencing report to assess her social situation, including her mental well-being. This is not the woman's first case of alleged theft.
Kleptomania, evident from her criminal record sheet, has previously landed her in trouble with the law, her lawyer told court on Wednesday.
This time around, the manager of a Tarxien store filed a police report at the end of August, claiming that a woman was stealing car stereos from his shop.
The thefts had allegedly been going on for quite some time, but the alarm was only raised when several people asked him whether stereos being sold on Facebook's Marketplace belonged to him.
At first, the shop owner ignored those messages, prosecuting Inspector Sarah Kathleen Zerafa told court.
But when the man finally checked CCTV footage at the shop, he confirmed the presence of the suspect and realised the thefts had been taking place since May.
On Tuesday, when the woman turned up once again at the store, the staff informed her that they were going to call the police. She immediately walked out and disappeared, but was subsequently tracked down by police and taken into custody for questioning.
On Wednesday the woman was arraigned and charged with aggravated theft as well as relapsing.
She pleaded guilty as charged.
'She returned to store to settle matters'
However, her lawyer, Arthur Azzopardi, explained that the accused had not gone back to the store to steal, but rather to attempt to settle matters with the owner.
The man had posted footage of the suspect on Facebook and the woman tried to approach him to offer reimbursement for the stolen items.
The accused’s husband, who waited outside the courtroom throughout the arraignment, was also willing to intervene to work out a way of reimbursing the victim, said Azzopardi.
'Untreated medical condition'
The woman’s trouble all boiled down to her untreated mental condition, went on the lawyer.
A look at her criminal record sheet showed that she was a kleptomaniac who had had similar brushes with the law and had also reimbursed the victims. In light of this, the defence requested a social enquiry report to assess the mental state of the accused, possibly even through psychiatric examination.
The defence also requested bail.
The prosecution did not object in view of the accused’s early admission and the promised restitution of the stolen amount which exceeded €3,000.
After hearing submissions the court presided over by magistrate Elaine Mercieca, upheld both requests.
Bail was granted against a deposit of €1,000, a personal guarantee of €5,000, daily signing of the bail book, a curfew between midnight and 6am and on condition that she would not approach any of the prosecution witnesses, particularly the shop owner.
The court also upheld the defence’s request for a ban on the publication of the accused’s name after the prosecution also pointed out that such a measure would safeguard the woman’s children.
Lawyer Jacob Magri was also defence counsel.