28 days to pay huge fine
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• by Mike Jewell A North Wales owner-driver who admitted fitting a device enabling him to falsify tachograph records has been given 28 days to pay .26,000 in fines and costs—or serve three months in jail.
When he appeared before Judge Ray Daniel at Chester Crown Court, Edward John Williams, of Rhuddlan, pleaded guilty to 25 offences of falsification committed between 8 January and 12 June 1998.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, Mark Laprell said the offences were uncovered during a joint investigation by vehicle and traffic examiners.
Williams' 32-tonne rigid tipper was stopped in a roadside check while it was carrying stone from Penmaenmawr to Ashton-in-Makerfield. When a traffic examiner compared the delivery note with the tachograph chart he saw that the load had been collected at a time when there was no movement on the chart.
The distance recorded on the chart was 54km and the examiner knew that the actual distance between Penmaenmawr and the check site was more than that.
When the vehicle's tachograph was examined extra lengths of wire were found behind the bulkhead leading to a switch in the glove compartment.
Laprell described this as a sophisticated installation which enabled Williams to cut out the operation of the tachograph and break the hours rules. It also disabled the speed limiter, with all the potential danger that gave rise to.
When interviewed, Williams had admitted installing the device in about 1995. This was a deliberate falsification of records by an experienced operator using a sophisticated device, Laprell added, and the VI regarded it as a very serious case of its kind.
Judge Daniel fined Williams £200 for each offence with £1,000 costs, and with three months' imprisonment if the total amount was not paid within 28 days.
But Daniel concluded that a prison sentence was not appropriate in all the circumstances of the case.