Fines for wrong trailer reduced
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• Fines of £2,500 imposed on Horwich, Lanesbased Sylvester O'Gara have been reduced to £700 on appeal to Bolton Crown Court.
The penalty was imposed for using a vehicle without a test certificate and a lower vehicle excise duty rate than was legal.
In October O'Gara pleaded guilty to the offences before Bolton magistrates. He was fined £500 for the test certificate offence, £2,000 for the VED offence, and he was ordered to pay £745 back duty.
Prosecuting, Nigel Poole said that when a 38-tonne artic was stopped in a check at Horwich last March, a traffic examiner found that the three-axled tractor unit was taxed at the concessionary rate for a six-axled outfit though hauling a two -axled semi.
He also noticed that the test certificate on the trailer expired in September 1992.
Elizabeth Alton, for O'Gara, said he was running four tractor units and two trailers at this time. The drivers were self employed. Ninety per cent of the work was for one customer, CBI Freight_ The drivers would go with their tractor units to the customers' premises and they would be told where to go and what to do. Usually they would pick up a trailer and move it from one place to another, O'Gara was not in control of what CBI asked its drivers to do. The drivers were told to check over trailers and check the test certificate. On this occasion, the driver should have known that a two-axled trailer could not be pulled by a threeaxled tractor unit. If he had contacted O'Gara, a two-axled unit would have been sent. He also failed to check if there was a current test certificate.
The trailer belonged to CBI and it was its responsibility to make sure the trailer had a test certificate, said Alton. O'Gara's business was up for sale due to his financial position.
Cutting the fine for the test certificate offence to £200 and for the VED offence to £500, Judge Hodson said he did so in view of O'Gara's finances and that he did not have direct control over the circumstances of the offences.