'Works trailer' High Court appeal fails
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• An appeal by G. Greaves and Son Ltd, timber transporter of Hull, against its conviction by the Hull stipendiary magistrate on January 21 of using a trailer in Stoneferry Road, Hull, on June 30, 1970, without having a goods vehicle test certificate and a plating certificate showing the trailer had undergone additional tests, was dismissed with costs in the High Court last week.
The company, which had been fined a total of £20. had been prosecuted by the police under Goods Vehicle (Plating and Testing) Regulations, 1968, and the Road Traffic Act, 1967.
Lord Widgery (Lord Chief Justice) presiding in the Queen's Bench Divisional Court, said the company had contended that the trailer was not subject to the regulations because, at the time of the alleged offences.
it was a "works trailer" and was on the road only in the "immediate neighbourhood" of the docks and a firm of timber importers.
The stipendiary magistrate had rejected both contentions.
Lord Widgery said the appeal could not succeed unless it could be shown that the magistrate was wrong in finding that the trailer's use was not confined to the "immediate neighbourhood".
The vital question was what was the nature of the journey being undertaken by the trailer? It was a little short of two miles through an industrial and commercial area.
The magistrate was "obviously right" in the view he took that the use of the trailer was not confined to the "immediate neighbourhood" and the appeal failed, said Lord Widgery.