Haulier faces jail for tacho fiddling
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• A Leicestershire haulier has been told he could face prison for fitting switches to his vehicles to disconnect the tachographs, and for aiding and abetting drivers to use them.
John Wallis, former managing director of Ashby Magnabased JW Contractors, pleaded guilty at Leicester Crown Court to three counts of falsifying tachograph records by using a switch to disable the tachograph and to six counts of aiding and abetting three drivers.
The offences came to light after police stopped the vehicle Wallis was driving and he became agitated. Wallis asked traffic examiner Christopher Harris and a police officer if they could go with him to the company's premises, but on the way Harris became suspicious about a switch on the dashboard and asked Wallis to demonstrate it.
Wallis became even more agitated, and when he got back to the site he jumped from the cab
and locked himself in his office. Eventually police obtained a search warrant and broke the office door down.
The prosecution argued that Wallis had the switches installed in the vehicles and that he had instructed the drivers how to use them. Judge Christopher Pitcher said that on the face of it Wallis had been running a "crooked business".
Pitcher demanded more financial information and adjourned sentencing for 10 days.