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CASE TWO
Page 25
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'Sullivan associate has Licence revoked
HAULIER who was given a one-year prison sentence in April or 0-licence fraud has had his 0-licence revoked and is banned from holding one for 10 years.
Scottish Traffic Commissioner Joan Aitken made the ruling at an Edinburgh public inquiry in the absence of Aboyne-based William Robertson, trading as 'William Robertson Haulage.
The company was licensed for four vehicles and eight trailers.
Robertson was one of three men jailed for conspiracy to defraud. Stephen O'Sullivan, the architect of the scam in which 0-licence discs were rented out, was jailed for six-and-a-half years in his absence, having absconded before the jury returned guilty verdicts at Luton Crown Court. Ilkeston-based haulier Anthony Purnell was jailed for 15 months (CM 26 March, CM 30 April).
Traffic examiner Patrick Hun-ell revealed that he was lead officer in an operation dubbed 'Operation Octopus', which was designed to investigate large-scale fraud.
It was a classic 'wheel conspiracy', with O'Sullivan at the hub and others, including Robertson, as the spokes.
The TC said the convictions were for matters that attacked the very heart of goods vehicle operator licensing, attacked road safety, and attacked the idea of a level playing field for other Operators.
Through his criminal actions against the 0-licensing regulations and the defrauding of persons who thought that they were buying honest licences Robertson had forfeited all trust.
In not disqualifying Robertson from eve' holding an 0-licence again, the TC said she bore in mind that he had played a far minor pan to that of O'Sullivan who was the over-arching criminal mind in it all.
O'Sullivan had made million of pounds compared with Robertson's thousands.