Sutton fine is halved
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• Sutton and Son (St Helens) has had a fine of £200 halved at Sheffield Crown Court after appealing against a conviction for using a hired trailer without a test certificate.
Legal arguments centred around the issue of whether Sutton's or the hirer, TIP, was the user of the vehicle when it was stopped in March 1990 with a test disc two months out of date. Anthony Cranfield, for Sutton's, argued that although there was no doubt that the company was the user of the tractive unit, the semi-trailer was on contract hire from TIP. Sutton's was only permitting the use of the semi-trailer, however — TIP was the real user.
Cutting the fine, Judge Deby said that Sutton's did in fact have some responsibility to check the test dates, but agreed there was no real reason for it to do so as the trailer was on contract hire.
The hire company should have notified Sutton's that the test was due, he said.