Man found guilty of window frame theft

An eagle-eyed neighbour has saved the day for one yacht owner by noting the number plate of a van that drove off with a set of window frames.

Magistrate Doreen Clarke had heard how Danrof Vella had been driving in Marsaxlokk during on the morning of the 3 March last year when he spotted the aluminium frames lying in a house’s drive-in.

Knowing that he could sell them as scrap metal, he knocked at the door of the house, receiving no answer. Vella walked around the premises hoping to find someone he could ask about the frames, but found no one.

From the fact that the frames were left outside and not very well preserved, he deduced that they had been placed there awaiting collection by refuse trucks. He loaded the frames onto his van and sold them off for €300.

Unfortunately, the frames had actually come from a yacht belonging to the owner of the house, who had intended to restore them and reinstall them on board.

The owner told the court that he had placed the frames in his drive-in as they were taking up too much space in his garage. A neighbour had informed him that the following day that a man had loaded them in a van and that he had taken down the van's registration number.

The magistrate found Vella guilty, pointing out that there was no reason for him to assume they were to be thrown away, as the frames had been in the drive-in and not in the road.

Vella was conditionally discharged for a year.