A man has been cleared of misappropriation after he failed to pay his dues on an outboard engine which, he claimed, had been stolen from him.

Carmel Flask was accused of misappropriation after he bought an outboard engine costing Lm3,500 from RLR Ltd. He had paid a deposit of Lm2,000 but made no other payments.

The court heard that the accused told the police he knew the outboard engine would only become his on paying the full amount, but argued he had stopped paying for it after it was stolen and he had stopped earning any money. The court noted that the accused had told the police he did not file a report about the theft because he did not know the engine's serial number and because he was illiterate, he did not know the number would be written on the documents passed on to him when he bought it.

The court noted that for the charge of misappropriation to be proven, it had to be established that the accused had sold the engine to third parties, which the prosecution had failed to do.

Lawyer Richard Sladden appeared for Mr Flask.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.