Two Gozo Channel employees were yesterday cleared of sending an unseaworthy vessel to sea after a court ruled that an expired certificate for safety equipment did not make the ship unsafe.
Magistrate Neville Camilleri ruled 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 trips between Malta and Gozo with an expired Marine Escape System. The MES is a slide shoot used in cases of emergency with each Gozo Channel vessel equipped with two of them.
The two employees had been charged with sending an unseaworthy vessel to sea since it had an expired licence.
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. As a safety precaution, he allowed 500 on the boat instead of the usual 900. Captain Grech had been suspended soon after making the claims against his employer.
The court heard that April 28 and 29 that year was the weekend and the company which services the vessels’ MES systems did not operate on weekends. It also heard that just because the MES certificate had expired did not mean the system was unsafe but that the annual inspection had not been carried out.
Captain Mark Chappelle, senior technical manager at Malta Transport, said that all the administration had to do was 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.
Mr Borg told the police 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 the vessel was not safe to operate.
“Since there was no danger, the court felt no need to make any other observations,” Magistrate Camilleri said, as he cleared the two employees of charges brought against them.
The magistrate also recommended that such situations could be avoided in the future if a reminder to renew the MES certificate is set to one week before the expiry, giving chance to employees to carry out the necessary tests.
Police inspector Frank Tabone prosecuted.