Drunk jailed for resisting police

A 35-year-old Ghanian man with a propensity for dramatic courtroom gestures has been jailed for six months for resisting police officers whilst drunk.

Yaw Akadom pleaded guilty to having threatened and resisted a police constable in Valletta on 17 March at around 3:15pm.

The man also admitted to charges of being drunk in a public place, vagrancy and breaching the conditions of a previous suspended sentence – also for public drunkenness – which he had been handed on 9 February this year.

On that occasion, Akadom had dramatically fallen to his knees in front of magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona, in gratitude for not being jailed.

When it was time for the magistrate to pass sentence on him today, Akadom whipped out a Bible from a trouser pocket, begging the court for mercy.

A deadpan magistrate Joe Mifsud, however, politely informed the defendant that he wasn't partial to watching amateur dramatics in court, despite it being Lent, and possibly the season for it in other venues.

Finding him guilty as charged, the court fined Akadom €850 and reactivated his erstwhile suspended six-month prison sentence.