Convicted duo keep licence ...
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• Two former directors of Ipex Freight Brokers who were given suspended prison sentences for conspiring to make false international per-. nits and journey sheets, have been allowed to continue operating their haulage business by North Western Licensing Authority Martin Albu.
The LA had been considering revoking the internatonal licence held by Jodrell Transport of Bury on the grounds that its directors, Keith Rayner and David Garratt, no longer met the requirement to be of good repute. Last June the two men were each given a 12-months prison sentence, suspended for two years, at Leeds Crown Court and were each fined £5,000, to be paid within 12 months with a nine months prison sentence in default (CM 15 June-3 July).
ForJodrell, John Backhouse said an oddity of the case was the length of time — in excess of four years — that it had taken to bring the matter to court. No explanation had been forthcoming and the judge had made adverse comments about the delay.
Though both men were directors of Jodrell, they had no financial interest. The company was owned by Trans International Forwarders, which in its turn was owned by the wives of the two men. Impex was closed down shortly after the offences were committed: the fact that Jodrell had been properly run for a number of years demonstrated that the two men had regained their repute, said Backhouse.
Rayner said he could not describe what they had gone through in the past four years, and they were determined it would not happen again.
Questioned by Albu, Rayner said Impex had done a lot of business they had not been involved with. Their job had been to organise runs to Italy, using owner-drivers and small hauliers. When one of the two directors responsible for the money behind Impex decided to leave, he and Garratt had thought that it was a good business and had spent their life savings acquiring it.
They subsequently discovered discrepancies in the accounts, with more than 70,000 missing.
Jodrell was engaged in work to and from Spain, working for a number of large fruit importers and carrying for people like ICI. Before Impex they had been associated with a company called Down Yard, which had run into financial difficulties and had subsequently gone into liquidation. . Backhouse said that when the two men acquired Impex they inherited a system where journeys were being undertaken for which the company did not hold proper permits. They just continued the system and it came to light when they took action over the financial discrepancies they discovered.
Albu said that though such offences were taken seriously, those particular offences had been committed some years ago. He felt that they could be overlooked in circumstances where the company appeared to be trading within the law.