A 70-year-old man had a conviction for driving without a car licence overturned when a court of appeal found the dates the police said they were carrying out inspections did not tally up with the fine issued to the accused.

Last April, Annunziato Gatt was found guilty of not having a car licence or third-party insurance for his car and was subsequently fined €2,400 and disqualified from holding a driving licence for six months.

He subsequently appealed the ruling.

The incident dates back to December of last year when police were doing the rounds in Triq Villabate in Żabbar. There they happened to come across a car that they identified had an expired licence tag and noted that the driver had allegedly been driving without insurance cover.

In his appeal, Gatt said that there were obvious mistakes in the proof put forward against him and that the only direct evidence was an affidavit signed by a police constable who said that the inspections were being carried out between the night of December 18 and 19 in December 2023.

However, the fine written out to Gatt referred to the date as “18 December at around 00.08 hrs”. Since the document did not refer to the date as December 19, then it conflicted with the police’s primary evidence, Gatt argued.

The first court had subsequently clarified that the round check had in fact started to be carried out by the police on December 17 at 10.30pm and continued till around 1.30am on the 18th, not on the 19th as previously stated by the police.

The Court of Appeal, presided over by Judge Neville Camilleri, noted that there were inconsistencies throughout proceedings about the time and the date of when the inspection in question was carried out.

The first court had even noted that the police constable could have been clearer about when the operation had taken place.

As a result, the court accepted Gatt’s appeal and revoked the sentence, declaring him not guilty of the charges and rescinding the punishment.

Herman Mula was defence lawyer.