Records Prosecution Dismissed With Costs
Page 27
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SITTING at the Guildhall Justice A..-,Room, London,. last week, Alderman Sir W. Phene Neal had before him a batch of summonses against well-known haulage concerns, complaining that they had not complied with the Goods Vehicles (Keeping of Records) Regulations, 1935. The Alderman made some caustic criticisms of the prosecutions, inflicting, in 10 cases, the nominal fine of Ss., and in one case a fine of ls. He refused to allow costs to the complainant (Mr. M. T. Corrigan, a traffic examiner on the staff of the Metropolitan Licensing Authority), ex
cept in one case. Setien summonses against the Union Cartage Co., Ltd., were dismissed, with £2 2s. costs.
Mr. G. Raphael, for the Licensing Authority, staled that at 2 a.m. on May. 27,, the traffic examiner, accompanied by a police constable, visited
Smithfield Market, and there asked a number of drivers for their records. In each case, the driver said that, acting on instructions, the records had been handed in to the office of his em ployers in the neighbourhood. The Licensing Authority held the view that, if the records were in the offices, they could not be said to be current records, as it was impossible for them to he made up to the moment, if the drivers had not access to them.
Evidence was given by Mr. Corrigan, who said that all the men whom he questioned told him that they had handed in their records to the office, and that before they left the market, their practice was to call and collect them. Two weeks after this occasion, he visited the offices of the Union Cartage Co., Ltd., to inspect the records, The Alderman: "Way did yon not go at once—on this night? " Mr. Corrigan: "That was no part of my duty, The drivers had not their records when they were asked."
Mr. Letts submitted that the fact that the drivers were without their records for a few minutes was no offence.
The Alderman: "The examiner could have gone into the offices of the company and seen them on that night. It seems to me that this concern has done all it could to comply with the Regulations, and I can do no other than dismiss the whole of the summonses. will allow £2 2s. costs against the Licensing Authority," Mr. Raphael asked for a case to be stated for the High Court. Mr. C. Burman (clerk of the court) said that no point of law was involved in the magistrate's decision. He had dismissed the summonses on the facts.
The Alderman declared that he was ready to state a case, but that the representative of the Licensing Authority should have dealt with the matter in "a very different way."