An "inconclusive" police investigation which did not establish a direct link between missing bus ticket fares and a driver, has seen the court letting the man off the hook. 

George Ebejer, 42, a driver with bus company Arriva, was cleared of misappropriation after he was accused of tampering with the ticketing system. 

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit ruled that the case presented by the police against Ebejer was inconclusive because the case had too many ifs and buts and had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt as required in the criminal field.

Ebejer had been accused of fraudulently cancelling tickets and pocketing the fares himself.

The court observed that documents presented by the prosecution did not tally with the dates when the alleged crimes had taken place. The documents referred to 2011, while the charges specified dates between December 2012 and February 2013. 

Moreover, the magistrate noted, the documents did not mention Ebejer by name and there was nothing linking the accused to the documentation. 

Ebejer worked with Arriva from June 2011 to March 2013, when he was fired on a disciplinary matter.

He had admitted to sometimes cancelling tickets when these were issued incorrectly and that he had sometimes done so with multiple tickets because of a fault in the machine. However, he said that only one ticket would be cancelled and the others would be paid for by the driver himself.

He had previously settled an outstanding debt of €1,400 which he owed to Arriva for money that was not deposited in 2011.

One witness had testified that a PIN number belonging to the accused was used to cancel tickets, but the court held that this alone was not sufficient to convince it of the man’s guilt.

Ebejer denied cancelling any tickets between December 2012 and February 2013, saying that the large number of cancellations using his PIN number could have been an attempt at constructive dismissal. The driver said trouble had started brewing when he had refused to drive a defective bus. 

Ebejer’s lawyer, Ryan Ellul, argued that the case had not been proven by the police, which had not even brought as evidence the bus CCTV footage of his client supposedly cancelling tickets and pocketing the money. 

On the basis of the inconclusive evidence, the magistrate cleared Ebejer of the charges brought against him. 

Police Inspector Sean Scicluna prosecuted.