BRIEFS Driver tore up his chart
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• A Scottish owner-driver tore up his tachograph chart, threw the pieces out of the cab window and then climbed from the cab and tried to grind them into the ground with his feet when stopped by police during operation 'Night Trawler' .
But police were able to piece Fraserburgh-based George Davidson's chart together again. Kendal magistrates were told, when Davidson pleaded guilty to obstructing the police, three offences of falsifying tachograph charts and one of overloading.
Prosecuting, Richard Henderson said the joint police and Vehicle Inspectorate operation, mounted in December against Scots drivers and operators carrying fish from Aberdeen to Europe on behalf of Blue Water Shipping, had followed a fatal accident in February 1996 which had involved Davidson's vehicle.
He was subsequently prosecuted at Carlisle Crown Court for driving without due care and attention and falsifying tachograph records, and was fined £600 (CM 27 March-2 April). The present offences had been committed while he was aware he was to face the court over the previous matters, said Henderson.
Defending, James Backhouse said Davidson had torn the chart up out of frustration. All the drivers involved had complained that when they were stopped at Penrith they had been treated in
an aggressive manner by the police, claimed Backhouse. He said they had been held in a legally dubious manner and no refreshments had been made available to them although there were refreshments on the site for the police.
There had been a fairly fraught atmosphere at the check site, Backhouse said, saying that if people were not treated with a reasonable amount of respect there was bound to be a tense atmosphere.
Davidson was fined a total of £1,400, and ordered to pay 154 prosecution costs. The magistrates said that it had been a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence in an effort to avoid prosecution.
Fourdon, Aberdeenshire lorry driver Graham Stewart, stopped in the same check, admitted three offences of chart falsification, one of overloading and one of using a trailer with defective brakes. He was fined a total of .D300 and ordered to pay £54 prosecution costs.