Lovric fails after police objection
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• A bid for a new licence by John Lovric, former sole director of the liquidated J Lovric Transport, has been refused by Eastern Deputy LA John Stevenson following an objection from Essex Police.
Lovric, trading as J&J Lovric Car & Commercial, had applied for a licence for two vehicles and two trailers based at Mount Hill Garage, Halstead.
DOT vehicle examiner Leslie Banham said he had examined one vehicle in March and found it generally satisfactory. However, since January 1990 J Lovric Transport vehicles had attracted 36 prohibition notices.
PC Alan Parsons said that in February 1992 Lovric had been convicted at Stafford Crown Court of perjury and reckless driving: he was sentenced to three months in prison and disqualified from driving for six months. In March 1994 he had been convicted at Colchester of offences inc luding the fraudulent use of a vehicle excise licence and a minor road traffic offence, being given 180 hours of community service with £160 costs. A series of vehicle excise duty offences had been recorded against J Lovric Transport.
Lovric said that many of the items listed in the prohibitions were not major items and were not dangerous. He felt that he had been persecuted by the vehicle examiner.
The company had got into financial difficulties and had not had the finance at the time to pay
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the road tax. He had offered to pay all the back tax owed plus a penalty but the authorities refused and took him to court. The company went into liquidation when the Customs & Excise demanded that .C40,000 in outstanding VAT be paid within a month, which was not possible. He had offered to pay it over three months but that was rejected.
The Stafford convictions arose because of an altercation with a solicitor when he was driving a 38-tonne artic on the M6. He had indicated to overtake and a car on his outside refused to move. He moved in and out causing the car to move into the outside lane. He heard nothing about it for 12 months and then the police came. The perjury charge arose when he was asked to produce tachograph charts and he produced charts which the police said were not the ones for the date in question.
He had not disclosed the convictions on the licence application form as he had misunderstood the question,
said Lovric. Ruling that Lovric was unfit to hold a licence, and that he did not meet the requirement to be of good repute, Stevenson said that when the company ran into financial difficulty he had taken a conscious decision to keep going and as a matter of policy run vehicles without paying the required dues to the State.
Operators were expected to comply with the law no matter what their financial situation, otherwise it was unfair on those operators who did pay their way.