Cadwallader tack, fines
Page 19
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Drivers' hours and tachograph offences led to G&R Cadwallader, Cadwallader Continental (Oswestry) and 14 of their drivers being fined a total of £3,170 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of 2944 when they appeared before the town's magistrates.
All the drivers admitted drivers' hours and rest offences. Two also admitted falsifying tachograph charts and one admitted failing to use his tachograph correctly. G&R Cadwallader admitted five offences of permitting drivers not to take a weekly rest period and Cadwallader Continental admitted four such offences. The two companies denied a further 36 offences of permitting hours and tachograph offences by the drivers.
Accepting the pleas Patrick McKnight, prosecuting, said there would have been some difficulty in proving the two companies had knowledge of what the drivers were up to. An investigation was carried out after Cheshire police had discovered discrepancies in some of the tachograph charts.
A large number of offences were discovered but proceedings could not be brought in relation to those committed abroad while the drivers were on international work and others were outside the time limit in which proceedings could be brought.
The two companies allocated the work to the drivers and ought to have known what they were doing and when they were due to take a rest period.
Defending, John Backhouse said that if the drivers had organised their workload properly it could have been done legitimately within the legal times. The offences were committed at a peak holiday period when there was also a ferry strike. The two companies were of long standing and of good repute. They had not realised what was happening and the offences had come as a shock.
The two companies were tined 2100 per offence and each ordered to pay £202 costs. All the drivers were also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £40, except Hughes, who was ordered to pay £20 costs.