A former bus driver was jailed for two-and-a-half years for the misappropriation of more than €3,000 after a court was told that for three months he failed to deposit the money he had collected from ticket sales.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera heard that Kevin Cassar, 45, admitted to the misappropriation of the money on and before January 2012, when the bus service was still run by Arriva.

Carmen Galea, who works with Malta Public Transport Services (now owned by Spanish company Autobuses de Leon), explained that each morning, bus drivers were assigned a bus that had a ticket machine.

A PIN number was required to access the machine, which kept a log of ticket sales.

At the end of the working day, each bus driver went back to the Arriva headquarters and depo-sited the money in a machine that worked using the same PIN.

But according to the records, Mr Cassar had not made any deposits during the three months he worked with the company, she said.

An Arriva accountant, Patrick Cassar, said the amount taken was estimated to be about €3,255.

Mr Cassar admitted to the charges during the compilation of evidence against him, and the magistrate appointed a probation officer to carry out a pre-sentencing report.

The probation officer pointed out yesterday that Mr Cassar had a drug problem and had been given various fruitless opportunities by the courts to address it. An effective jail term was necessary for him to address his drug use.

The magistrate noted that Mr Cassar had several convictions over similar charges.

Although he had filed a guilty plea, this was not done in the early stages of the case.

In light of this, the magistrate sentenced Mr Cassar to an effective jail term.

Police Inspector Jonathan Ferris prosecuted.