Police probe missing €5,000

The police are looking into the disappearance of €5,000 after it was confiscated as part of a criminal investigation.

The court last week held the Police Commissioner and the Customs Comptroller responsible for the missing sum and ordered them to repay the money. It cleared the Court Registrar of responsibility.

Nobody had counted the money in court

The Police Commissioner, through the force’s community and media relations unit, said he had ordered an investigation into the matter to try to establish what happened to the missing money.

In December 2008, Bryan Ellul Sullivan was found with €50,000 in his possession when leaving the island. He was accused of failing to declare he had more than €10,000 in cash.

The police deposited the sum that was allegedly undeclared – €40,000 – with the Court Registrar.

Mr Ellul Sullivan was acquitted in June 2009 but when he went to collect the money in September of that year he found €35,000 deposited with the registrar.

The Civil Court ordered the registrar to pay the cash, but the latter appealed, claiming there was no evidence the envelope deposited actually contained €40,000.

It turned out that nobody had counted the money in court before it was deposited. It had been counted in the “court corridors” by the Customs Comptrollers just before the arraignment, sealed in a white envelope and passed on to the magistrate’s deputy registrar.