Pub owner guilty of tampering with meter

A PUB OWNER from Nicosia yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing electricity by tampering the electricity meter in his pub.

The 57-year-old man was discovered to have used up £2,520 worth of electricity after officials of the Electricity Authorities of Cyprus (EAC) turned up at his pub in August 2003 with police officers. They had noticed a red cable protruding out of his metre but the man denied placing it there, telling officers that he had paid someone to fix his metre because it was using too much electricity.

When officers arrived back at his pub two days later to charge him they noticed that another cable, this time a black one, was placed into the metre.

According to the state prosecutor, the incident sparked a reaction from the Attorney-General who requested to look into the facts of the three-year-old case.

Upon questioning by police officers at the time, the man told officers that he admitted the crime, that he had made a mistake and that he had paid back to the EAC every last cent that he owed them for the electricity that he had used.

The man’s defence lawyer pleaded with Judge Angelos David to show leniency when passing sentence arguing that the man did not know that the metre had been fiddled.

“My client did not know that he was breaking the law. The power kept dropping in his pub so he paid somebody to fix his metre which is what he thought happened. The accused has recently remarried but has three children from his first marriage.

“We feel that a lenient punishment should be given bearing in mind that the man has to support his children and has breathing problems which he needs medicine for.”

Judge David ruled that he would make his decision regarding the punishment for the crime on Tuesday morning.

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