Arriva driver jailed for misappropriating ticket money

A magistrate has handed a two-and-a-half year custodial sentence to a drug-using former Arriva bus driver, after the driver admitted to keeping the money from his ticket sales instead of depositing them.

Inspector Jonathan Ferris had charged 45-year-old Kevin Cassar with the misappropriation of over €3,000 from Arriva in his three-month stint working there, between November 2011 and January 2012.

Malta Public Transport Services employee Carmen Galea testified that she had been employed by the previous public transport operator Arriva at the time during the police investigation into Cassar’s behaviour.

Galea explained the ticket revenue collection system in place at the time, where bus drivers would deposit the day’s takings at the Arriva offices. The amount would then be checked with the ticket sales log from the bus’s individual ticketing machine.

She told the court that no deposits had been made by Cassar in his three months working with Arriva. The company’s accountant, Patrick Cassar, testified to the undeposited amount being €3,255.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera handed Cassar an effective jail term after seeing his probation officer’s pre-sentencing report, which advised that a custodial sentence would be the most effective punishment and which noted that Cassar had not used the several previous opportunities afforded to him by the courts to address his drug problem.