Ferrymasters drivers fined
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by Andy Young • Ten drivers employed by P&O Ferrymasters have been ordered to pay .C4,875 in fines and court costs for tachograph, record keeping and driving hours' offences.
The drivers all pleaded guilty to a total of 36 charges heard by a stipendiary magistrate at Ipswich magistrates court. Another 71 charges were dropped after the drivers pleaded not guilty to them.
P&O Ferrymasters, the haulage arm of P&O European Transport Services, now faces 95 charges of aiding and abetting false driving records to be kept, using vehicles without a tachograph, and permitting drivers to take insufficient rest. The Company, which has 170 drivers, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and the case will be heard at Ipswich magistrates court starting today (8 May).
The charges follow the seizure of tachograph records and other documents from the firm's head office in Ipswich last June.
Police and officers from the Vehicle Inspectorate obtained a search warrant after they received a tip-off alleging that offences had been committed.
The drivers were charged after inconsistencies were found between tachographs and records of driving hours in March and part of February last year. _ In a separate case before Ipswich magistrates, Ferrymasters driver Graham Gobold pleaded not guilty to charges of keeping a false record, failing to use a tachograph and taking insufficient rest. He was acquitted.