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'Complete evasion of
Page 63
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truth by LA, CLAIMS COUNSEL
• "It will be necessary for me to make a long and sustained attack on the LA for the Northern Traffic Area", said Mr. R. Yorke when opening the appeal on behalf of G. Stiller (Transport) Ltd. before the Transport Tribunal in London this week. Stiller was appealing against the decision of the Northern LA, Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, to refuse it a new A licence for two artics and to vary its normal user in respect of these two and 11 others to read, in its amended form: "abnormal indivisible loads of exceptional length, steel, timber, concrete, goods for Davy Ashmore Group, engineering goods, agric. products excluding livestock, chemicals. England and Wales."
Six of the respondents, including Siddle C. Cook Ltd., were represented by Mr. T. H. Campbell-Wardlaw, and British Rail by Mr. A. J. F. Wrottesley.
There were nine grounds of appeal, including these: the LA reserved judgment for 10 weeks and then refused the application without giving any reasons; the LA granted to Siddle C. Cook an additional six vehicles similar to the two additional vehicles included in this application between the seventh and eighth days of the hearing, allowing a normal wider user, without hearing public witness; the LA conducted the proceedings in denial of natural justice, in particular he permitted and encouraged the objectors to protract the hearing to 12 days in the hope of making the continuance of the application financially prohibitive; the LA himself sought to obtain and adduce evidence unfavourable to the applicants; the LA misdirected himself in failing to consider the fact that the shortage of Special Type vehicles of even the smallest size in the Northern Traffic Area is so great that the customers cannot get their work done in time, or at all, or else are dependent upon the casual availability of surplus traffic from other traffic areas; the LA misdirected himself in failing to find as a fact that none of the objectors made out their statutory objection.
Mr. Yorke dealt first with his claim that the objectors had failed to make the statutory objections, a course described by counsel for the respondents as "unique".
In attacking the reasons why the LA refused Stiller's application. Mr. Yorke said:
"The reasons in writing were an attempt to rectify a decision the LA realized he couldn't support. The document is a complete evasion of the truth.
"Even the normal user outlined in his reasons was not what was heard at the inquiry and it shows that in all probability he failed to refer to the transcript."
Mr. Yorke's final plea was that the Tribunal should grant the application in full or give a direction that a deputy LA re-hear the application. "Of course", said Mr. Yorke, "this alternative would not be really fair, as the objectors have since been granted another 10 similar vehicles between them and their objections would be much stronger by virtue of their availability schedules."
If the Tribunal failed to rule in his client's favour, he continued, he would be justified in taking the appeal to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that a fair trial and natural justice had not been effected in the LA's court.
"This int:I:airy has cost my client thousands of pounds", said Mr. Yorke, "and he has been on the verge of withdrawing both from the original application and this Tribunal many times because of the sheer size of the bills. None of this expense can be claimed from the cause of it all—the objectors."
Opening for the respondents, Mr. T. H. Campbell Wardlaw said: "The impression one gets from the appellants' evidence is that everyone concerned with the application is wrong, except, of course, the appellants.
"The proceedings were commenced on October 28 1968 and within a few minutes of the opening the applicants were advised that allegations of illegal operation would be made. The proceedings were concluded in April 1969 giving them not seven days notice but months". (He was answering a complaint of lack of notice).
Counsel said it was incomprehensible that the appeal could possibly succeed when there had been no attempt to call customer witnesses to support the backbone of the application—steel.
Mr. Campbell Wardlaw alleged that the LA required to see the drivers' records because vehicle earnings schedules showed the average vehicle earnings to be approximately £14,000 a year. "We never have been able to discover the secret of such fantastic earnings", he said.
"You never will," objected Mr. Yorke, "and the drivers' records were required before the earnings schedules were produced and were brought to court because of an earlier request by the LA, apparently standard practice in the Northern Traffic Area. It is quite incorrect to tell the Tribunal that they were required because of vehicle earnings".
The case continues.