Flowers Freight Guilty
Page 30
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Judgment Given in Test Case
T4' Bow Street Magistrate, Mr. K. P. Barraclough, giving his judgment in the Flowers Freight Co., Ltd.., case last Monday, found the company guilty of using a vehicle for the carriage of goods for hire or reward without. the authority of a carrier's licence contrary to section 164(1)(a) of the 1960 Act In a test" prosecution, brought against them at their request, the cornpany contended that by fitting a rack temporarily to the roof of an Austin Oinnicoach they were riot adapting the vehicle for the carriage of flowers. Only if the fitting was of a permanent nature could it be said that the vehicle had been adapted.
In his judgment Mr. Barraclough said that, after considering the cases referred to by the defence, he did not think that the drilling or welding of the rack to the roof of a vehicle was the sole criterion in determining whether the vehicle had been adapted. He could not find, as the defence had contended, anything in any of the cases cited to say that the adaptation must be of a permanent nature, and it seemed not to matter a jot whether the rack could be attached by drilling or welding.
In the circumstances he was satisfied that the motor vehicle had been adapted for the carriage of goods and he fined the company £5.
Mr. Barraclough stated that he wished to make it plain that his decision in no way impinged on the ordinary private motorist carrying a roof rack for the purpose of, say, carrying his luggage to or from a holiday. "This is solely concerned with the carriage of goods for hire or reward: in other words, in a haulier's business of some sort," he concluded. Flowers Freight are to ask the magistrate to "State a case" with a view to taking the matter to the Divisional Court (A full report of this case is contained in "Licensing Casebook" on page 824.)