A woman who withdrew €1,000 to spend on dental treatment ended up ruing that decision after a shoplifter stole her purse from inside a St Paul’s Bay supermarket. 

The woman was testifying on Wednesday against Yanika Cuschieri, a 27-year-old Birkirkara resident who stands accused of the March 22 theft. 

That afternoon at around 2:30pm, the flustered shopper turned up at the Qawra police station to report that her wallet had vanished from inside her shopping bag, cash, cards and all. 

Before entering the store on Triq il-Ħġejjeġ, she had withdrawn €1,000 from an ATM, to use for dental treatment abroad. 

“I have a problem with my teeth and I was travelling abroad for that purpose,” the witness explained. 

She then went to a supermarket, where Cuschieri is alleged to have stolen the purse. 

The witness testified that the thief “took the wallet from my bag and left the shop.” She indicated Cuschieri as the culprit. 

Asked by the court whether she had actually seen the accused take her purse, the witness replied in the negative but added that she had later been shown footage from the shop’s security cameras. 

That footage clearly showed the accused approach a vending machine, slip her hand into the bag and then walk out of the shop. 

Following the incident, police had tracked down the suspect and retrieved her wallet along with some €540, finished off the woman. 

Asked both by the court as well as by the accused’s lawyer about how she had withdrawn the stated amount of cash from the ATM, the witness insisted that she had done so “at one go.”

“All at one go? And with one bank card?”asked lawyer Daniel Attard. 

“Yes, all at once….I don’t have to lie,” retorted the witness, somewhat visibly flustered by the lawyer’s questioning which brought her testimony to an end. 

A sergeant from the Qawra police station testified that he identified the subject from CCTV footage at the store. Cuschieri had filed several police reports over the previous weeks, he said. 

He knew that the suspect lived on the same street as the supermarket and proceeded to knock on her door, PS Matthew Calleja testified. 

Cuschieri “cooperated and when shown the footage, she admitted,”said the sergeant, triggering an audible “no!” from the accused who shook her head in apparent disagreement. 

The police then found the wallet, still containing some €540 in cash, along with the owner’s ID and BOV cash card. 

Shortly after reporting the €1000 cash theft, the alleged victim had returned to the police station saying that there was another €300 in the wallet, the court was told. 

Footage from the alleged crime scene was retrieved by forensic officers and transferred to CD format. That CD was today presented in evidence by prosecuting Inspector Christian Cauchi.

Given that the accused was proving somewhat difficult to trace, the prosecution requested the court to issue bail conditions to make sure that the woman would attend court sittings when expected to. 

Magistrate Rachel Montebello leafed through the case records and observed that although an arrest warrant had been issued against Cuschieri in May, several attempts to execute it had failed. 

The court thus upheld the prosecution’s request and placed the accused under a personal guarantee of €1,000, warning that she would forfeit that sum if she failed to attend court hearings without a valid reason. 

Inspector Christian Cauchi prosecuted.Lawyer Daniel Attard is defence counsel. 

The case continues in January.