A magistrate has thrown out claims by a Gozo Channel master that one of its vessels was sent out to sea despite safety concerns.
The master claimed that two two employees who had a criminal case initiated against them were cleared for the purpose.
Magistrate Neville Camilleri ruled that the MV Gaudos was still safe despite the expiry of the Marine Escape System and that the vessel was seaworthy and at no time was the safety of its passengers compromised.
He was ruling in a criminal case initiated by the police against senior engineering and maintenance manager Sammy Grech, 58, from Mosta and operations manager George Borg, 51, from Sannat.
They had been investigated after former Gozo Channel master Mario Grech filed a criminal complaint that the MV Gaudos operated a trip between Malta and Gozo with an expired Marine Escape System. The MES is a slide shoot used in cases of emergency. Every boat has two of them.
The two employees had been charged with sending an unseaworthy vessel to sea.
Captain Grech told the court that he was operating the MV Gaudos on April 30, 2012, when he realised that the MES certificate of one of the two systems had expired two days before so he decided to allow 500 on the boat instead of the usual 900.
Captain Grech had been suspended soon after making the claims against his employer, and had filed several court case many of which he eventually dropped.
The court heard that April 28 and 29 that year was the weekend and the company that services the vessels' MES systems did not operate on weekends. It also heard that just because the MES certificate had expired did not mean that the system was unsafe but that the annual inspection had not been carried out.
Captain Mark Chappelle, Senior Technical Manager at Malta Transport, told the court that all the administration had to do is notify Transport Malta and the certificate would have been extended for up to five months.
Mr Grech told the police during interrogations that the inspection on the MES had been planned for April 25 but due to work exigencies and other commitments it had only been carried out on April 30, soon after Master Grech had flagged the problem.
Mr Borg told the police that he had been informed that the plan was to service the MES on April 30.
Handing down his judgment, Magistrate Camilleri said it was made amply clear from evidence presented in court that the fact that the MES certificate had expired by a couple of days did not mean that the vessel was not safe to operate.
"In no way whatsoever did it result that the safety of passengers was in any way compromised when it continued to operated with an MES with an expired certificate. What the court could recommend is that the reminder to renew the MES certificate is set to one week before the expiry, giving change to employees to carry out the necessary tests and to avoid similar problems. Since there was no danger, the court feel no need to make any other observations," Magistrate Camilleri said as he cleared the two employees of e charges brought against them.
Police Inspector Frank Tabone prosecuted.