Appeals court sentences pregnant woman two months in jail for pickpocketing

A pregnant Bulgarian pickpocket who was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment in August has had her sentence slashed on appeal.

34-year-old Ivanova Parashkeva had been jailed for 16 months in August after she admitted to having stolen a bus driver's wallet.

During the woman's arraignment, the prosecution had requested an effective prison term, telling magistrate Doreen Clarke that "pickpockets were coming to Malta from abroad with the express purpose of stealing" and that the lenient sentences being handed out by the courts were not serving as an effective deterrent.

Through lawyers Franco Debono, Shazoo Ghaznavi, Amadeus Cachia and Robert Galea, Ivanova had filed an appeal, arguing amongst other things that although she had pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated theft, the charge did not reflect her actions. The lawyers argued that she should have been charged with an attempted theft and not aggravated theft because the woman had been caught in the act. This has a bearing on punishment, as attempts are punished far more lightly than completed offences.

In its sentence, the Court of Criminal Appeal presided by Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti dismissed the woman's first ground of appeal – that she had not meant to admit the charges and had only done so on the advice of a court-appointed legal aid lawyer.

The court said the impression that it was possible to admit guilt before the courts of first instance and then change one's mind and file a successful appeal claiming the admission had been made in error, was an erroneous one which it did not wish to propagate.

The court, however, then took the unusual step of disturbing the first court's decision on punishment. The unique circumstances of this case, where further evidence could have pointed towards the finding of guilt for the attempted, not the completed, crime together with the woman's early guilty plea merited that her punishment be tempered, it said.

Parashkeva's sentence was consequently reduced from 16 months to two, from which time served was to be deducted.