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Bell grants second chance to ex-con skip operator

11th August 2005, Page 33
11th August 2005
Page 33
Page 33, 11th August 2005 — Bell grants second chance to ex-con skip operator
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Convicted drug dealer gets an 0-licence for three vehicles — as long as he behaves himself.

AN OPERATOR who recently completed a seven-year prison sentence for drug dealing has been granted a three vehicle 0-licence for his skip-hire business.

But when North Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell approved a licence for Clitheroe Skip Hire of Chatburn she warned director Ian Anthony that she only gave operators one chance to show they could operate properly.

The easy bit was getting the licence,she added the difficult bit was keeping it. Anthony will also be getting an inspection visit from VOSA.

Last month (CU 14 July) the company won the return of an agricultural tractor which had been impounded.

Victim of circumstance Appearing for the company. Basil Dearing admitted that director Ian Anthony, who had been abusive to VOSA officers during the impounding, had a number of convictions up to 1992. He was arrested in November 1996 and sentenced to seven years for conspiring to supply ClassA drugs. He was released in May 2005.

Anthony said that if he had not behaved as he had he would have been dead. He claimed he had been ripped off for £189,000 by his brother. As a result he had had to borrow money and he had borrowed it from the wrong source. He claimed his role in the drug offence had been to drive people about. Dearing said the agricultural tractor and adapted trailer that had been impounded had been disposed of. Business had fallen off over the previous three months as the company had been unable to use its vehicles.

Transport manager John Ball said he had previously held an 0-licence which had been allowed to lapse when he ceased trading.

Anthony said his wife and fellow director would do the paperwork; Ball, who had been offered a directorship and a shareholding, would run the fleet. He had applied for an 0-licence immediately after the tractor was impounded.

'Ihe TC commented that Anthony had given the examiners a -whole lot of grief' when the tractor was impounded.

He told her that he had "come on as strong" because he had been confronted by 18 enforcement officers.

It was not just VOSA, but police, Customs & Excise, Health 8,z Safety and the Environment Agency that came at him that day, he explained. The removal of the tractor left him with 100 skips he was unable to move.

He told the TC that he would deal with such a situation in a better way in the future. He admitted that he had paid a fine for having red diesel in the tractor's tank.

After the TC had said that the company would be getting a visit from VOSA, Anthony said:"I will deal with these people properly."


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