Flagging out test case ends with a guilty plea
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• by Tim Bugle
A test case Drought against a haulier who had "partially" flagged out his trucks to Ireland failed to materialise last week when the haulage boss decided to plead guilty in the face of mounting legal costs. He was admonished and ordered to pay £276.50 in back duty.
This will disappoint hauliers who were hoping the case would clear up some of the legal issues surrounding flagging out.
The test case was brought against Broughty-Ferry-based A&H qdd after Kydd had "followed the lead" of several other firms by re-registering his fleet of six 41-tonne artics in Ireland where vehicle excise duty is much cheaper than in the UK. Like many others, A&H Icydd continued to handle domestic work on a UK 0-licence but with Irish number plates.
The prosecution was mounted after one of his vehicles was stopped at a Vehicle
Inspectorate spot check at Craighforth Interchange on the M9 on 18 August1999.
Kyrld's solicitor Michael Allen says: If this lorry had been doing a regular run taking fish from Aberdeen Harbour to Boulogne this would have been perfectly legal. But because it was used on UK domestic trips it is Thought to have been transgressing the regula. tons." This is contrary to advice from the European Commission, which states that hauliers must be "fully based" in the country where the vehicles are registered—otherwise they will be contravening EC regulations on the cross-border hiring of vehicles.
"The whole idea of this was that if I pleaded not guilty they'd have made a big issue of it," says Icydd. "But there are hundreds of bigger operators than me running about 20 or 30 wagons and they've never touched any of them. If somebody had given me backing it might have been different, but I couldn't afford to fight this myself."
Phil Flanders, the Road Haulage Association's director for Scotland and Northern Ireland, watched the proceedings and says the case "failed to bring legal clarity".
Urging the government to bring another test case, he adds: "The government must make clear to hauliers where they stand on this issue."