Haulier charged after fatal crash
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• A Frenchman who set up a haulage operation in the UK has escaped a corporate manslaughter charge following the death of one of his drivers on the M11 in 1998. But Francois Thoron, transport manager and partner in Euroreefer UK & International Refrigerated Transport, still faces a string of other charges, including breaches to Health & Safety regulations, forgery, intent to pervert the course ofjustice and tachograph offences, He denies all the charges.
Euroreefer driver John Jaggs died in March 1998 while working for the Lincolnshire-based meat haulage firm. He suffered fatal injuries after his truck ran on to the hard shoulder of the MTI and into a French truck which had stopped to have a tyre refitted.
Opening the case for the prosecution at Chelmsford Crown Court last week, Anthony Abell told the court Thoron had encouraged his employees to drive excessive hours "on a regular basis" and used "various scams" to falsify tacho charts. Abell also suggested such practices had been the cause of Jaggs' accident after he "probably" fell asleep at the wheel. It is also alleged that Thoron paid one driver to give false evidence.
The trial comes just months after the landmark case in which two directors of Berkshire-based Roy Bowles Transport were convicted of corporate manslaughter and given suspended jail sentences. It was found they had overworked a driver who caused a motorway pile-up after dozing off at the wheel.
The case continues.