This Europe: Love proves no defence in bugging case

Inordinately large phone bills persuaded Francesco Z, 53, from Calabria in the south of Italy, that his wife, Maria, was having an affair.

He could have confronted her with his suspicions, gone through her handbagor taken his troubles to a detective agency.

Instead he chose to turn detective: he bought a phone bugging device and set about monitoring her conversations. But this week, Italy's Court of Cassation, the nation's highest appeals court, ruled that in so doing he broke two laws, and confirmed the verdict handed down by the same court nearly two years ago: eight months in prison, suspended.

Mr Z decided to take the case back to court because he felt the first bench had failed to take into account two important factors.

In the first place, he installed the bug for the purpose of detecting a betrayal – much as agencies of the state consider themselves to be within their rights when they bug the conversations of suspected criminals. And secondly, his wife – they are reconciled –agreed to withdraw the prosecution.

Mr Z even asked the judges to believe that he had asked Maria if she minded being bugged before installing the equipment, and she had told him that she didn't.

With this argument, however, Mr Z appears to have pushed his luck too far, and the judges plainly did not believe a word of it. In fact they threw the book at him, concluding that he had broken two laws: one, "installing equipment to intercept or impede telephone conversations"; and two, "deceitful interception of the communications or conversations of others".

Mr Z's attempts at mitigation fell flat. Apparently, even if his wife had been planning to murder him, and he had merely attempted to collect evidence of the plot, he would be risking jail in the process.