A former bank manager, William Stride, who accepted a VRT certificate for his car when he knew that it had not been tested, was today conditionally discharged for two years.

The case happened in October 2009.

Police Inspector Angelo Gafa' said that in November 2009 the police had investigated the granting of VRT certificates by Car Clinic. A computer was seized and a discrepancy of 1,400 was found.

He explained that the testing machinery was stand-alone and not connected to  the Transport Malta system. When a vehicle passed the test, the operator moved to another system linked with Transport Malta, to input the vehicle details.

Therefore, one could have situations where vehicle details were inputted on the Transport Malta system when they would not have been actually tested. A discrepancy of 1,400 cars had been found in this way.

This was one such case.

Mr Stride in his testimony said he had taken his car for a service and then for the test. He was sure his car met all requirements. This was the first time he had used this particular VRT station.He admitted that the tester did not put the car to the test but issued the certificate. He paid for the VRT and drove off. He had not felt he was doing anything wrong in that he was sure the car would have passed the test. He had not received any benefit as he still paid for the test.

Magistrate Herrera said there was no doubt that the VRT certificate was false in that his car was never actually tested. Although the falsification was made by a third party and Mr Stride made no benefit, he was still an accessory to a crime.

He was sentenced to a two-year conditional discharge.