Man cleared of using stolen car parts in absence of evidence that they were stolen

A sprayer and panel beater has been cleared of using stolen car parts after the court determined that the prosecution had brought no evidence the parts in question were stolen

A court has acquitted a 31-year-old panel-beater accused of tampering with a vehicle’s chassis number and receiving stolen goods, ruling that no evidence had been produced to show that the accused had known that the parts were stolen, if indeed they were.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera heard how, in January, 2013, the police had inspected a number of cars stored in a garage located in a San Gwann quarry, which doubled as the workshop of sprayer and panel beater Brian Galea.

Galea had been arrested and charged after the police noted a mismatch between the serial number stamped on the chassis and the chassis number listed on the dashboard of Galea's Peugeot 307. Further investigations revealed that the dashboard's chassis number originated from a car reported stolen in 2010.

Galea told the court that he had bought the Peugeot second-hand, after it had been involved in an accident which required the replacement of many parts, a number of which he had purchased from a nearby garage belonging to a certain Michael “ix-Xelinu,” who the prosecution insisted was known to deal in stolen goods. Galea had denied any knowledge of this reputation, however.

Inspector Darren Buhagiar, prosecuting, accused Galea of failing to make the necessary checks on previous ownership when he had bought the parts from him.

Lawyers Michael and Lucio Sciriha, defending Galea, countered this argument, pointing out that the police had not proven that the dashboard had been acquired illegally or that Galea had tampered with the chassis number.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera agreed, adding that the prosecution had not laid any evidence relating to the presence of two different chassis numbers and neither had it summoned Michael "ix-Xelinu" to testify.

Concluding, the magistrate noted that the prosecution had not even proven that the parts were stolen in the first place. The court also pointed out that the disposition in the law under which Galea was charged was intended to avoid the deliberate tampering of engine serial numbers on the vehicle logbook, not to prohibit the use of parts from other cars and, as a result, declared the accused not guilty of all charges.