Hero driver is tacho checked
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• South Yorkshire police prosecuted a Barnsley truck driver for not having a tachograph—just weeks after he was hailed as a good Samaritan for helping at the scene of an accident.
When Robert Cherry saw two cars collide on his coal delivery round he immediately checked that both drivers were all right and then diverted traffic for 20 minutes.
He assumed that was the and of the affair but then police turned up at his father's depot in Barnsley and charged them both with not having a tachograph. It is understood that a policeman noticed Cherry's vehicle was not fitted with a tachograph while he was helping out at the accident. Barnsley magistrates fined them nearly £300.
But his father, Alan Cherry, says that any vehicles making door-to-door sales are exempt from the tachograph laws. He is adamant that the police took the wrong approach—they should have given him a warning instead of charging him.
Local MP Eric Illsley, who has taken up Cherry's case, says he will be raising the matter in the House of Commons. Coal merchants in the South Yorkshire area are becoming easy targets as police try to push up conviction rates, Ilisley claims.
"Police should be tackling Barnsley's high crime rate and drugs problem instead," he says.