The owner of a garaged van, which has no engine, seats or number plates, has been fined for driving it in Gozo without a seat belt last December... and she was not even in Gozo on that day.

Last month, Jennifer Buhagiar received a LESA contravention fining her €23.29 and stripping three points off her driving licence. The bizarre ticket stated that a police officer had seen her driving without a seat belt in Għajnsielem on December 15.

Buhagiar says this was impossible because her van was – and still is – garaged without number plates and in a state of complete disrepair. Neither was she in Gozo on December 15.

She and her husband have lodged a petition with LESA and tried to contact the agency and the police for an explanation but have received no help so far.

The van, a 1994 Piaggio Porter Estate, was registered with Transport Malta as a garaged vehicle in 2020.

Jennifer and her husband, Alfred, bought it, in its garaged status, last December.

They had initially planned to restore it and convert it into a small camper for family picnics but when the project turned out to be too expensive, they decided to keep it garaged and use it for spare parts.

“The van is a total wreck. We can hardly push it out of this garage, let alone drive it all the way to Gozo,” Alfred Buhagiar said.

The engine-less 1994 Piaggio Porter Estate was garaged by its previous owner in 2020. Photos: Chris Sant Fournier

“A police officer could not have taken note of the plates because we do not have them,” he added.

Times of Malta saw the van, the LESA contravention notice and Transport Malta documents confirming that the van is garaged and has no physical number plates.

In the process of garaging vehicles, Transport Malta collects the number plates and registers the vehicle as ‘garaged’ under the last registration number it held.

In a reply to questions, LESA said that “it cannot provide further information” since the “contravention was issued by a member of the Malta Police Force”.

Police sources suggested that the contravention could have been issued to the wrong vehicle by mistake. The officer could have really seen a driver without a seat belt that day but inserted the wrong registration number into the system, sending the contravention to the wrong vehicle owner.

However, the sources said, the mistake can easily be rectified when brought in front of a petition board.