£2,900 for fake entries
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• A West Midlands haulier has been ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £2,900 after being convicted of aiding and abetting drivers to falsify tachograph charts.
Appearing before the Walsall magistrates, Willenhall-based Brian Biddle denied 10 charges of aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring three drivers to make false entrieS in tachograph charts, and three charges of making false entries on tachograph charts.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, Beverley Bell said that Brian Biddle, trading as BB Express, employed three drivers: his brother Blair, Keith Norris, and Nigel Platt.
Brian Biddle had allowed the drivers to put his name on their tacho charts to conceal the fact that they had gone over the hours limits. The drivers had been acting under Brian Biddies direct instructions.
Traffic examiner Patricia Earp said that an investigation was launched after a BB Express vehicle was stopped in a check. A pattern had emerged of a chart being removed from the tachograph and being immediately replaced by a chart bearing Brian Riddle's name. On one occasion Norris's chart had been removed from the tachograph when the vehicle was travelling at speed and the following chart, in Brian Biddle's name, was opened again when travelling at speed.
Norris said that he had worked for Brian Biddle for about five months. He had been forced to drive more and more excessive hours. What Brian Biddle wanted could not be done legally. When he took it up with Brian Biddle he was told to put Riddle's name on the tachographs. He had done so because he needed the job but had left because it got too much. It was only a matter of time before he would have had an accident and he had to draw the line somewhere.
Blair Biddle said that under instructions he had filled charts in using different names so that he could get back or had handed in blank charts. He was told that customers only remembered the last job and if he did not do it he would not have a job. When he handed the charts in he told Brian that some of them had his name on them.
Brian Biddle said he looked at the charts occasionally but he had never looked at the centre field. He denied telling the drivers to put his name on the charts or to leave them blank. He also denied exerting any pressure on the three men to drive excessive hours and take insufficient rest.
In reply to Bell, Brian Biddle agreed that he was paid by the trip, so the more trips that were completed, the more the vehicles earned. Asked how many charts there would be in a week for two vehicles, Brian Biddle replied: "Fourteen—sorry, twelve."
The magistrates fined Biddle £100 per offence with £1,500 costs.