Man acquitted of 1999 theft

A 40-year-old man from Zabbar has been acquitted of stealing cash from the room of a hotel which no longer exists in 1999. Patrick Mangion was cleared of stealing Lm100 from a room at the Bugibba Holiday Complex that was being occupied by two English women - Lynn Currie and Catriona Hardie. The two women had told the court that when they returned to their room they found a man inside their room who said he was the plumber. The man, they said, spoke to them in good English. After he left they checked their belongings and realised some of their things were missing so they filed a police report. In his testimony, Mr Mangion was adamant that this was a frame-up and that he was not to blame. He said that whenever he had been charged with theft and was guilty, he always admitted but in this case he was really not to blame. Moreover, he could not even speak English. In her judgement, Magistrate Miriam Hayman said that the victims were shown pictures of possible perpetrators and they noted three people. However, the other two chosen men had not been included in the line-up during the identification parade. She decided that this prejudiced the validity of the line-up. Moreover, there were...