A man who was involved in an insurance scam ten years ago had a five-year effective jail term converted to 240 hours of community service when his case was heard afresh after the first conviction was quashed over a procedural defect.

Aaron Charles Zahra, 41, a father-of-three, had been identified as one of the participants in a plot to defraud insurance companies out of substantial amounts of money.

The court was told that towards the end of 2013, police were alerted to insurance claims concerning traffic accidents which appeared to be dubious.

Investigations uncovered a series of collisions that appeared to have been purposely staged so that the parties involved could subsequently file insurance claims.

32 suspects

One of those parties turned out to be Zahra who, though not central to the plot, had been lured into it and derived significant sums of money after making claims in relation to three traffic collisions.

Some 32 suspects linked to the scheme were charged.

In 2020, Zahra was found guilty and was condemned to a 5-year effective jail term after admitting to fraud, making a false declaration, wilfully damaging his own property to claim insurance money as well as relapsing.

That conviction was subsequently quashed on appeal because of a procedural defect and sent back to the Magistrates’ Court for retrial.

When delivering judgment the court, now presided by a different magistrate, observed that the offences to which Zahra had pleaded guilty were serious not only because of the illicit gain made, but also because they struck at the very core of the relationship between insurer and client that was based on mutual trust.

Not the mastermind

Insurers paid damages in good faith.

Such offences undermined that relationship based on trust that was so essential to this kind of contracts.

However, the court also took note of the fact that the accused had admitted to the wrongdoing and was not the mastermind behind the whole scam.

Moreover, he had refunded the sums he had unlawfully benefited from.

A pre-sentencing report showed that Zahra was now a father of three whose life was focused on family and work.

He had a stable relationship and a supportive family, a fixed job and was very diligent.

He had no addictions and his only pastime revolved around his love for horses and tending to his fields.

The accused had no other pending criminal proceedings and his conduct sheet showed that he had had no brush with the law over the past eight years.

The probation officer who reported to the court, recommended that the accused ought to continue along this path, focusing on his family and for that reason suggested community work by way of punishment.

When all was considered the court, presided over by Magistrate Leonard Caruana, took on board that recommendation which was not objected to by either of the parties.

Whilst not ignoring the fact that the accused had benefited from substantial sums of money which he had refunded, as well as the fact that he was a recidivist, the court also took note of the accused’s current circumstances as detailed in the pre-sentencing report.

The court thus ordered the accused to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work within the community in line with arrangements that were to be handled by the director of probation and parole services.

Inspector Rennie Stivala prosecuted. Lawyer Roberto Montalto was defence counsel.