is putting in a temporary consumer unit fraud?

[westie101]

Well I would read it differently

or(b)prevents any such meter from duly registering the quantity of electricity supplied,he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
(2)Where any person is prosecuted for an offence under sub-paragraph (1) above, the possession by him of artificial means for causing an alteration of the register of the meter or, as the case may be, the prevention of the meter from duly registering shall, if the meter was in his custody or under his control, be prima facie evidence (or in Scotland sufficient evidence) that the alteration or prevention was intentionally caused by him

The second bit is akin to going equipped to commit an offence. If the meter &/or cut=out seal has been tampered with and someone is in possession of a screw driver it could be used as evidence.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Oh I would say that this part of the Electricity Act 1989 should fit!

10(1)A customer of an [F17authorised supplier] shall at all times, at his own expense, keep any meter [F18provided by] him in proper order for correctly registering the quantity of electricity supplied to him; and in default of his doing so the supplier may discontinue the supply of electricity through that meter.
(2)An [F17authorised supplier] shall at all times, at his own expense, keep any meter [F19provided] by him to any customer in proper order for correctly registering the quantity of electricity supplied and, in the case of pre-payment meters, for operating properly on receipt of the necessary payment.[F20(2A)Section 23 of this Act shall apply in relation to any dispute arising under this paragraph between an electricity supplier and a customer.](3). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(4)Sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) above are without prejudice to any remedy the supplier may have against the customer for failure to take proper care of the meter.

You could indeed argue that cutting the seals is failing to keep the meter in proper order, but it's a bit of a stretch to say that cutting them means that the meter will no longer correctly register the quantity of electricity supplied.

Then there is this bit

11(1)If any person intentionally or by culpable negligence—(a)alters the register of any meter used for measuring the quantity of electricity supplied to any premises by an [F21authorised supplier]; or(b)prevents any such meter from duly registering the quantity of electricity supplied,he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.(2)Where any person is prosecuted for an offence under sub-paragraph (1) above, the possession by him of artificial means for causing an alteration of the register of the meter or, as the case may be, the prevention of the meter from duly registering shall, if the meter was in his custody or under his control, be prima facie evidence (or in Scotland sufficient evidence) that the alteration or prevention was intentionally caused by him.(3)Where an offence under sub-paragraph (1) above has been committed, the supplier may discontinue the supply of electricity to the premises until the matter has been remedied and remove the meter in respect of which the offence was committed.(4)Where an [F21authorised supplier] removes a meter under sub-paragraph (3) above, he shall keep it safely until the Director authorises him to destroy or otherwise dispose of it.

What evidence is there that any person intentionally or by culpable negligence has altered the register of the meter?

Or perhaps even this one in that the seals were wilfully removed and thus damaged

(1)A person who intentionally or by culpable negligence damages or allows to be damaged—(a)any electric line or electrical plant provided by an electricity distributor; or(b)any electricity meter provided by an electricity supplier,shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.(2)Where an offence has been committed under sub-paragraph (1) by the occupier of any premises (or by the owner of the premises if they are unoccupied when the offence is committed) in relation to any electric line or electrical plant provided by an electricity distributor for making or maintaining a connection to the premises, the distributor may disconnect the premises.(3)Where an offence has been committed under sub-paragraph (1) in relation to an electricity meter provided by an electricity supplier which is situated on any premises, by the occupier (or by the owner of the premises if they are unoccupied when the offence is committed), the supplier may disconnect the premises and may remove the meter.(4)A meter removed under sub-paragraph (3) shall be kept safely by the supplier until the Authority authorises its destruction or disposal.(5)The distributor or supplier shall not be under any obligation to reconnect (and in the case of a supplier to restore the supply to) any premises disconnected under sub-paragraph (2) or (3) until—(a)the offender is no longer the occupier or, as the case may be, the owner of the premises; or(b)the matter in consequence of which the premises were disconnected has been remedied.

Do you think that a court would agree that cutting a seal counts as damaging the meter?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Well I would read it differently

or(b)prevents any such meter from duly registering the quantity of electricity supplied,he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
(2)Where any person is prosecuted for an offence under sub-paragraph (1) above, the possession by him of artificial means for causing an alteration of the register of the meter or, as the case may be, the prevention of the meter from duly registering shall, if the meter was in his custody or under his control, be prima facie evidence (or in Scotland sufficient evidence) that the alteration or prevention was intentionally caused by him

The second bit is akin to going equipped to commit an offence. If the meter &/or cut=out seal has been tampered with and someone is in possession of a screw driver it could be used as evidence.

It could be.

Given the explanation of what happened here, they physical evidence of building work,and no evidence that any electricity theft had taken place do you think that a court would be likely find someone guilty of an offence?

Go and relate this tale to your legal dept - see if they would have an appetite for prosecution.

Every time I drive my car I am "going equipped for an offence", because I have tools in it which I could use to force entry.

Every time I add to the driving the act of going off for a picnic I also add the carrying of a knife, which equips me to kill someone.

Apart from when they are being misused as instruments of state repression, I think you'll find that the police require more than mere "being equipped" to get any response from the CPS other than "**** off and stop wasting our time".

 

[JohnD]

The thing is there's a temporary consumer unit thing, like a 6 plug adaptor with a fuse on it.

"Elecrician" my arse.

 

[westie101]

I think you'll find that the number of times the police call us when finding broken seals and signs of unauthorised connections is rather higher than you might imagine. Some of them in just these circumstances

Don't forget that the Police can just decide to issue a caution which is recorded on a person's record, without reference to the CPS.

The reality is that there is no apparent will to do this, but we still have, without involving the Police or any other body, the right to disconnect the supply to a property under this legislation.
In which case it is up to the customer to appeal to the Secretary of State to have it reconnected which in the mean time leaves them without a supply!

Will the industry go down this line I don't know, but if it ever does there will be a lot of very unhappy customers that just might have set themselves up or been set up by electrical contractors (I personally know of a couple of hundred properties in this condition).

Apart from when they are being misused as instruments of state repression, I think you'll find that the police require more than mere "being equipped" to get any response from the CPS other than "**** off and stop wasting our time".

Which is no doubt the same situation as prosecutions under the Building Act for breeches of the Building Regulations e.g. Part P

You can't have it both ways!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Ah...

... broken seals and signs of unauthorised connections ...

 

[JohnW2]

Don't forget that the Police can just decide to issue a caution which is recorded on a person's record, without reference to the CPS.

True, but only if the individual admits to the crime, whic an innocent person may well be reticent to do. As BAS has said, if one has at least some faith in our criminal justice system, I doubt that a court would convict anyone of theft of electricity when there was no real evidence that any electricity had been stolen. They might, if they were so inclined, try to prosecute for something else, but 'theft of electricity' would seem unlikely.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

And criminal damage to a seal would seem vexatious.

 

[westie101]

At the end of the day we tend to seem to strive for the one size fits all answer, patently each case has to be dealt with on a one off basis.
The same is true of the main fuse issue.

So if I attend a property for whatever reason and find broken seals I will, based on a number of factors, decide what action I wish to take.

I can: - do nothing, give a verbal warning, a written warning (replacing the seals in these cases), decide to disconnect the supply, involve the police or the HSE or any other authority.

I certainly would not involve our legal section as these decisions are devolved to me on site.

Generally the involvement of the police is minimal as we would normally deal with issues under the powers we already have, face it I can legally, disconnect the supply and remove and impound the meter if I feel that is the best solution for my employer.

As an example this is an actual event.
Called late afternoon by the police to a property as a bypass had been found on a pre-payment (card) meter

The property is an empty housing authority property that a new tenant was moving in to, it was newly rewired had a new kitchen and freshly decorated.

The meter and cut-out were unsealed and a piece of10mm G/Y earth wire was bypassing the meter as well as the terminal cover being removed.. The customer's boyfriend was known to the police who wanted our (my) view on whether to prosecute or not.

But we know that the company that does the rewires (the source of the couple of hundred unsealed cut-outs and meters we know about) is notorious for breaking seals to connect new CU's, so the meter terminals are going to be accessible!
As the meter had no credit (it was actually in debit as the emergency credit had been used) on it the final view was that the builders or decorators had taken the opportunity to bypass the meter to give themselves a supply to work in the property (the meter card was on site so they or the housing authority could have put credit on the meter).

The police went away happy, the customer was very relieved and I had the job of discussing with the housing senior staff the situation and advising that we would be taking no action on this occasion. However should I find the same again we would be disconnecting the property and seeking to take action against the housing authority.

I think it is a fair bet that if the meter and cut-out were sealed that non of the above would have taken place, similarly even though, on the balance of probability it was the electrical contractor that had broken the seal, and either they, the builders or decorators had installed the bypass we really couldn't do much more.

But and this is a big but, what if that customer had been a house owner being initially accused of this after a rewire or other work that they had paid an electrician to complete.
Is that the best way to treat your customers by leaving them open to that situation?

 

[westie101]

Similarly with the situation described in the initial post, if I were concerned about any safety issue (protection, isolation of earthing for instance) I would consider seriously, disconnecting the supply!

 

[Adam_151]

The supply industry really wants to sort itself out and ensure that all these new smart meters on the way have integral isolators and contrator assessible terminals, or they'll be very busy chasing up loss of power signals for every new consumer unit in the land.... perhaps they could time themselves to respond a couple of hours after the signal when the sparky has got the tails into the new board and is just testing and putting away final circuits to look at the job and reseal the cutout

The current situation of phoning up and having to wait a lead time of so long is not workable in practice, either this needs to be quick and easy, or the contractor to be provided a way to isolate themselves.

But we know what will happen... the accountants will say no to smart meters with isolators, the following up every fuse removal will turn into logisital nightmare, so it'll not happen. The guys on the ground will pick up the odd missing seal while doing other work and ask a few questions and in the end will not be too bothered if its only the fuse seal broken and not the meter and there is a nice new consumer unit on the other end of the tails....

(although with the meter reader not popping round due to a smart meter, the really dodgy abstractions not triggering an alert which would have been obvious even to a meter reader will remain undiscovered for years....) But those who sit in offices will be happy because they'll then have a whole department of call center workers harrassing electrical contractors and asking them not to snip fuse seals again and they'll consider that they have solved the problem

 

[chris1roll]

I'm still looking formward to a photo of this "temporary consumer unit".
I can't see why the existing one couldn't stay in situ with all the circuits disconnected and a socket or two wired off one MCB/fuse for the builders power.

I really can't see why anyone would contemplate putting a 6 way trailing socket wired directly off the output of the meter, as sounds like has been done.

 

[electronicsuk]

I'm still looking formward to a photo of this "temporary consumer unit".
I can't see why the existing one couldn't stay in situ with all the circuits disconnected and a socket or two wired off one MCB/fuse for the builders power.

Indeed. I think there must be a little more to the story than we're being told for the meter fitter to have reacted in the way that he did to the missing seals. Either that, or he's one of those up-his-own-youknowwhat jobsworth types who take some perverse delight in exercising their powers.

 

[JohnW2]

Indeed. I think there must be a little more to the story than we're being told for the meter fitter to have reacted in the way that he did to the missing seals. ....

We have been told that, after the seals were broken, the tails to the CU were removed and replaced with a connecftion to a "consumer unit thing, like a 6 plug adaptor with a fuse on it." (and we're not told where earthing came from). I suspect that is probably enough additional story to have caused the meter fitter to 'report' the installation - not in relation to possible fraud but, more likely, safety concerns.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[Taylortwocities]