Investigation Threat to Operators
Page 63
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,k MOURNING a bearing at DarlingZ-1 ton, last week, Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, the Northern Area Licensing Authority, told the applicants: "I am not satisfied that your company has behaved in such a way that it puts them outside investigation." Ordering the adjournment, he told
them that when the hearing was reopened, he would want an explanation of events which had followed an application made in 1957.
Mr. G. S. Goodison, managing director of Lintzgarth Transport Co., Ltd., of Middlesbrough, said the present application was for a vehicle which had been taken off the licence during 1958 because of a slackening in customers' requirements, to be re-specified upon the special A licence. The licence had now expired and the application was therefore to have the vehicle placed on an ordinary A licence.
After questioning Mr. Goodison about the proposed normal user and about other vehicle changes upon licences held by Lintzgarth, Mr. Hanlon referred to a vehicle which they had applied to have placed upon a licence in substitution for another vehicle on September 6, 1957. Mr. Goodison had signed the GY6 form, said Mr. Hanlon. On the same day another form had been received, also signed by Mr. Goodison, deleting the vehicle on assignment to Mr. Ian McLaughlin, who was then an employee of K. and B. Motors, Newcastle.
"Da you know that it has been discovered, in the course of an inquiry which is still pending, that the same vehicle had been purchased from Guy Motors by K. and B. Motors of Newcastle, ordered by a firm called McPhees (Newcastle), Ltd., on their specific order, and that the vehicle never left Guy Motors' works at Wolverhampton until September 27, 1957?" asked Mr. Hanlon,
Mr. Goodison replied that he knew nothing about the matter as he had been in a nursing home at that time and the papers had been brought to him to be signed, and he naturally took them to be in order. He subsequently admitted that he had actually sold the licence,
Mr. Hanlon said that hauliers were not entitled to sell licences. The Act only allowed the transfer of a unit which had formerly belonged to the British Transport Commission.
"I am not satisfied that your company has behaved in such a way that it puts them outside investigation," he said. When the cast was next beard he would want an explanation and would go into the whole transaction. The applicants had been a party to something which made the whole transaction look straightforward and honest, but he doubted whether it was.
When Mr. Goodison said the manager who had been in charge at that time was no longer with the company, Mr. Hanlon replied that the company was liable for the acts of its servants.
The company had had a considerable number of transactions in relation to special A licences—they should deal with such licences with the greatest of care.