Director claims harassment
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A director of a Lancashire tipper operator, who admitted losing his temper when a trading standards officer served him with a batch of summonses, is waiting to see what action will be taken against his company.
Standish, Wigan-based Steve Parr Haulage & Plant Hire appeared before North Western Deputy Traffic Commissioner Mark Hinchliffe at a Leeds disciplinary inquiry. Trading standards officer Gordon Pickup said that enquiries revealed that the company had been removing waste material from a site near Squires Gate Airport. Of 165 loads carried to the landfill site all but 24 were overweight.
When Pickup served the summonses director Steven Parr had to be restrained by a police officer from attacking him, Pickup told the inquiry. Parr had thrown a pint mug at him and had come at him with a crowbar. Pickup denied that he had slapped Parr on the chest with the documents.
Fleetwood magistrates convicted the company and six drivers of 175 overloading offences and 65 dangerous load offences; sen tencing was deferred.
Constable Graham Robinson of Greater Manchester Police said an anonymous caller alleged that drivers were breaching the drivers' hours rules. When weight tickets were compared with tachograph charts it seemed that drivers might have been falsifying charts. The tickets showed that vehicles had been repeatedly overloaded.
Parr refused to give the drivers' names and addresses; he was being prosecuted for that. Robinson had to stop Parr damaging Pickup's car and assaulting him.
Ian Whalley, for the company, said Parr had refused to supply the drivers' details on legal advice. There was a report from a consultant engineer whose opinion was that the overloaded vehicles were not likely to have been dangerous because of their design weight. An appeal against those convictions would be considered once sentence was passed.
There was some evidence that suggested there might be something dubious about the private weighbridge at the landfill site, Whalley added. The company had been paid on a vehicle-per-day basis, so there was no commercial gain from any excess weight. The drivers had not thought that they were overloaded, as some of their vehicles were equipped with on-board weighing devices.
Parr said he felt that Pickup had gone over the top. A lot of things had gone on before he gave him the summonses, Parr added; he alleged Pickup had hounded the company and the drivers. "It has been his mission in life to squash this company to the floor like a piece of chewing gum," he told the inquiry.
Denying that he had to be restrained by PC Robinson, or that there had been any assault, Parr said he had had non-stop hassle for 15 months. He had lost his temper as there was only so much he could take.
The Deputy TC, who is also considering action against the drivers' licences, will announce his decision next week.