A 39-year-old man with a colourful police record was jailed for eighteen months after a bus driver caught him red handed stealing a stereo from his car.

Lawrence Micallef passed his parked car while driving a bus and saw Charles Sciberras holding with his car stereo and some CDs in his hands. The driver called the police, who arrested Mr Sciberras.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera heard how Mr Sciberras, who is from Santa Lucija, had no less than 35 criminal convictions on his criminal records. The accused was, in fact, charged with breaching the conditions of previous releases but the charge was dropped since the police only presented an unauthenticated copy of the judgements.

The Magistrate said, however, that despite his previous punishments, which included a jail term, Mr Sciberras had not changed his ways and had not even made the slightest effort to rehabilitate.