The owner of a wedding hall in Hal Far has been acquitted of electricity theft when he ended up charged with tampering with the electricity meter. 

Pierre Peter Abela, 55, from Attard, was cleared after the court heard how Enemalta technicians only found one of four seals broken, indicating that the meter had not been opened. 

Mr Abela had been charged in 2009 with stealing some €7,500 worth of electricity at the wedding hall between October 2000 and October 2005. According to Enemalta, that carried out a surprise inspection in 2005, the three-phase meter was under registering 33 per cent of the actual consumption. 

Mr Abela denied tampering with the meter and listed several instances where he had contacted Enemalta because of fault in the energy supply as well as damages he had suffered as a result. 

He told the court that in 2000, he had contacted Enemalta over fluctuations and surges to the power supply. The correspondence spanned over a number of years because the problems resurfaced every few months, despite Enemalta telling him that there was nothing wrong with the meter that had been installed in August 1998. 

On one occasion, he said, he had written to the corporation holding it responsible for damages sustained by the air conditioning system. He had also told the utilities company that the fluctuations could have damaged the meter.

When an inspection was carried out in 2003, Enemalta technicians found that one of four seals on the meter was broken and a part referred to as the 'shunt' had been moved. 

On that occasion, Mr Abela said, he had been told that the meter was under registering and had been asked to pay Enemalta €2,330. He though the story had ended there but criminal action was taken against him. 

He was charged in 2009 and Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera inherited the case in November last year. 

The magistrate heard how the shunt could not have been tampered with unless all four seals had been broken. She also heard how the three-phase meter was replaced, and the new meter was registering an average daily consumption that was less than when the 'tampered' meter was still in place. 

The magistrate said these two facts disproved the fact that the meter had been tampered with, especially when considering that the remaining three seals had been broken by Enemalta officials during the inspection. 

Magistrate Scerri Herrera therefore cleared Mr Abela of the charges. 

Police Inspector Carlos Cordina prosecuted.