Two young men from Hamrun today admitted to charges in connection with an attempted burglary from a Santa Venera shop last month.

In separate arraignments, police inspectors Eliott Magro and Roderick Zammit presented the Qormi neighbours Keithien Borg, 19 and Janovich Gatt, 18, under arrest, charging them with attempted theft from the shop and causing wilful damage.

Mr Gatt alone was also charged with an attempted theft from a pastry shop in Hamrun, in which damage was caused, while Mr Borg was accused of committing a crime while out on probation over a separate case.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke sentenced Mr Borg to nine months imprisonment but chose not to convert Borg’s probation order to an effective jail term, warning him that “this is the nth time you have been convicted, you now have three sentences hanging over you. Use your nine months in prison well because if you leave jail and commit another offence, you will be going back there for a much longer time.”

The court also ordered the Director of Prisons to place the accused on a drug rehabilitation programme.

Mr Gatt, who was already under a probation order, was handed a nine-month sentence suspended for 18 months.

The magistrate told Mr Gatt: “You and your friend ruined each other. Learn from your friend’s experience.”