A couple who falsely declared in a tender that their training centre was accessible to disabled people have been given suspended jail terms on appeal after initially being acquitted.
The court heard how Roseanne and John Galea, who own Future Focus Limited, had won two tenders to offer IT related training to some 60 students from the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology in 2008.
The college had far too many students to cope with and asked private companies to tender to offer IT-related training.
One of the prerequisites was that the training centre had to be accessible to people with disability. However, the centre was not when it was checked, the court heard. A police report was filed about the discrepancy.
When the case came before Magistrates’ Court, the couple were acquitted, with the presiding magistrate discarding a technical report drawn up by a court-appointed expert and another by an architect appointed by the couple.
The front of the building had no access to wheelchair-bound people and the entire building was also not accessible due to a flight of stairs.
In a statement, Ms Galea said the building was accessible to most disabled people and she felt she did not need to declare it was not accessible to wheelchair-bound people as the company never had a customer in a wheelchair since opening for business in December 2000.
In court, the Galeas argued that while the criteria stated the building must be accessible to people with a disability, the statement could mean anything and that their premises was accessible to disabled people, just not to people in a wheelchair.
Mr Justice Michael Mallia ruled that the statement “access for people with a disability” meant that as a minimum there had to be access to wheelchair-bound people.
He said the magistrate should not have “capriciously” discarded the technical reports on the matter as the court would not have technical experience in every aspect.
Mr Justice Mallia overturned the acquittal and sentenced them to 18 months in jail suspended for two years.