A woman has been found guilty of unlawfully taking her estranged husband’s €9,000 whisky collection, with the court however acquitting her partner of theft.

The 30-bottle collection was kept at a boutique hotel in Vittoriosa which the couple jointly owned.

In July 2020, as the couple were separating, those bottles of expensive limited edition whisky went missing. The man immediately filed a police report and told officers CCTV footage showed his wife and her new partner, who worked at the hotel, taking the bottles, placing them in black garbage bags and exiting the hotel.

He told officers he had been amassing the collection since he was 18 years old, well before he met his wife, and that he valued it at around €9,000.

When police officers spoke to the two, they both acknowledged that they had taken the expensive bottles but insisted they had done so to protect them from being damaged during ongoing restoration works.

Police initially dropped the case on the basis that the woman was a co-owner of the hotel. But the man pressed on and presented some receipts which indicated that he had bought many of the bottles before the two got married.

The woman subsequently told the police that she had voluntarily returned the bottles. She suggested splitting the bottles with her estranged husband, who however declined that offer and insisted on filing a police report against her and her partner.

A court concluded that the woman was guilty of disturbing her husband’s possession of goods but acquitted her of the more serious charge of theft. She was handed a conditional discharge and ordered to return the whisky bottles.

Her partner was convicted of theft and given a suspended prison sentence.

Both appealed, and this week a court of appeals presided by Judge Consuelo Scerri Herrera concluded the case.

The judge upheld the original judgment against the woman, noting that her co-ownership of the hotel did not give her the right to seize items which others had a legal claim to. 

While the first court had ordered that he be given a copy of the boutique hotel keys, the court of appeal revoked that order.

On the other hand, the woman’s partner was acquitted on the basis that he had testified that the woman was also his boss and that he had been following her instructions when he moved the bottles and adjusted settings on a CCTV camera.

The court said that while he had moved the bottles there appeared to be no financial motive for doing so and acquitted him of charges.

The two were represented by lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Mark Mifsud Cutajar.