Crowther fined El for each lost chart
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• ,Shropshire operators G G Crowther & Sons, Crowthers Animal Livestock Haulage and Lionel Burgoyne trading as W Burgoyne & Sons have been fined a total of 27,500 after Ludlow magistrates heard that over 7,500 tachograph charts had disappeared in what was said to be a deliberate attempt to avoid an investigation.
G G Crowther SZ Sons admitted 20 offences of failing to produce tachograph records, Crowthers Animal Livestock
Haulage admitted nine similar offences and Burgoyne six.
Patrick McKnight, prosecuting for the West Midland Licensing Authority, said there was one specimen offence for each of the 35 vehicles operated by the three associated businesses.
At the beginning of February a vehicle driven by a Graham Edwards was stopped by a police officer. The tachograph chart produced had no name on it and there was another chart dated the same day with Edwards' name on it. There were two charts for January 30, one bearing Edwards' name and the other Burgoyne's name. Edwards admitted doing all the driving.
Also found were two charts for another date, one bearing Burgoyne's name and the other the name of another driver, Phillip Green.
A formal request for January's tachograph charts was made hut when a traffic examiner tried to collect them he was told they had all been put into a filing cabinet and that they had been stolen.
Burgoyne had said that it had become known that the ministry was investigating and he thought that one or more of the drivers might have broken in and stolen the charts.
When a subsequent request for 12 months' records was made it was said that they had been put into the same filing cabinet and had also been stolen.
G G Crowther & Sons was fined 23,000 with 2100 costs, Crowthers Animal Livestock Haulage 22,700 with 2100 costs and Burgoyne 21,800 with 2100 costs.
Edwards was fined 2275 after admitting three hours offences, one of failing to make entries on the centrefield of a chart and one of falsifying a record. Green was fined 275 for falsifying a record.