Scottish Power Not Charging or Billing Us

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My partner moved in to a rented flat around a year ago. When she moved in there was two pre-pay meters, one for gas and one for electricity. The gas meter has been fine, no issues with that. However, since she moved in the electricity meter has been broken. The screen that displays both usage and balance is lit up but is blank and shows nothing. The landlord said when she moved in that the previous tenant had left at least £40.00 in the meter as she'd been given some kind of grant from DSS. A month or so after moving in she reported the fault to Scottish Power and although the call centre staff couldn't really understand what the problem was they did say they'd send someone out to look at it.

A couple of weeks later a meter reader from G4S turned up, took one look at the meter and said he'd file a fault report as he couldn't get a reading. Since February we have sent 5 emails and had 6 telephone conversations with Scottish Power as well as having had another 2 meter readers out and still this meter hasn't been fixed. However, the electricity in the flat has never gone out. Now, I know there was some balance left int he meter but there's no way there was a year's worth surely!

We've sent another email last week (to the complaints department this time) but so far have only had the automated response. My question for the more knowledgeable people here is, where do we stand on this? Can they come back to us, fix the meter and then try to charge us for a year's worth in one go? This has always been my concern although my partner who works in CS for a massive telecom company is less worried and reckons we have a watertight case based on correspondence etc. I don't even know how they could charge us given that the meter can't actually be read. There is a key for the meter but we can;t put any money on to the key because the display is damaged and doesn't seem to acknowledge a key has been inserted.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.