16-year-old synthetic drug user kicked down parents' door, court told

A court has warned a 16-year-old to stop dabbling with synthetic drugs after he was charged with kicking down a door at his parents’ house in a rage.

Inspector Roderick Spiteri charged the unemployed young man, who told the court that he is not attending school, with voluntary damage to property.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera observed that this was the accused’s third brush with the law in a matter of months, sternly warning him of the consequences of that path he had evidently chosen.

“Do you know I can send you to prison today?” asked the magistrate, castigating him for setting a bad example to his 5 younger siblings.

Asked what happened, he said that his mother had taken away his tablet computer and when he had told her that he wanted to log out of Facebook, she had slammed the door shut. He kicked it down, he said.

The boy told the police that he takes synthetic drugs. “How do you buy it?” asked the court. “You don’t work. I don’t think it falls from heaven.” “I get it from people [niddobba],” replied the boy, his face a dark shade of crimson.

“You need to change your life. I will bring you here every 3 months until you’re sick of coming here,” warned the court.

The accused pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to three years of probation. He will live with his mother and appear in court every 3 months where his probation officer will update it on his progress.

“This is the last chance I’m going to give you. I’m appointing a probation officer...if he tells me you are not free of drugs and respecting your parents you will go to prison,” said the magistrate.

Lawyer Helga Buttigieg Debono was defence counsel.