A young man who fired an airgun at the Gżira health centre was trying to hit a television screen that was showing the Italy-Costa Rica World Cup match, sources said.

The 18-year-old, John Junior Pace, from Gżira, was off the mark. No one was injured in the incident at around 7.40pm on Friday, in which he shot towards an open window of the health centre from the roof of his house.

He was yesterday fined €700 by a court after he pleaded guilty to firing an airgun within 200 metres from a main road or inhabited place. Sources said the police were alerted to the incident by one of the security guards on duty at the health centre in Belvedere Street.

When officers went on site they found a metal pellet on the floor of the gynaecology waiting room and a dent on an aluminium door.

From these marks forensic investigators concluded that the rifle had been fired from a high position.

The house of the accused was searched and a BSA Meteor air rifle, together with some 40 pellets identical to those fired at the health centre, were found.

It transpired that the rifle belonged to the young man’s father, who had acquired it some 30 days before.

Defence lawyer Jason Grima told Magistrate Audrey Demicoli that his client regretted the incident, saying that he was only trying to use the rifle for the first time and did not mean any harm.

Police inspector Jason Francis Sultana prosecuted.