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Driver made up false licence

11th March 2004, Page 31
11th March 2004
Page 31
Page 31, 11th March 2004 — Driver made up false licence
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A DRIVER WHO disappeared for three years after being charged with showing his employers a false driving licence has been ordered to pay fines and costs of £770 by Rochdale magistrates.

Lee Hothersall of Pear Avenue, Bury had denied two offences of using a vehicle without insurance, driving a vehicle with the incorrect licence, using a licence with intent to deceive Ind taking insufficient daily rest. He was conActed by the magistrates, who heard he had gnored the original summons until a warrant or his arrest brought him to book last summer.

Insuffident daily rest

['raffle examiner Simon Jenkins said that in 7ebruary 2000 a 17-tonner belonging to Boltoniased Jo Transport was stopped on the AS at Aagna Park. The driver gave his name as Lee iothersall. He later claimed that the only vehiles he had driven for Jo Transport were a van nd a 7.5-tonner. Tachograph charts showed hat he had taken insufficient daily rest.

Howe ver, given the delay in bringing the case ) court both Jenkins and another traffic examler giving evidence were unable to be 100% ertain that Hothersall was the man they had :ten four years ago.

The second traffic examiner, Susan Mullen, said when she visited the company, director James Obertelli gave her a copy of Hothersall's licence showing a Class 1 entitlement. The file in her possession showed no such entitlement. Further enquiries revealed that the document produced was two licences stuck together— the section bearing Hothersall's name and address had been stuck to the entitlement section of someone else's licence.

When interviewed, Hothersall still maintained that he had a Class 1 entitlement; he denied taping the two licences together.

Mullen said Obertelli had introduced her to the man she had interviewed as Hothersall. Obertelli said he had had no doubts about the licence as licences were often taped as they tended to fall apart when kept folded.

Hothersall had been allocated a 17-tonne vehicle and at that time the company was not even operating any 7.5-tonne vehicles as Hothersall had claimed. Obertelli stressed that neither was it running two units with the same registration number.

Pay records and running sheets showed that Hothersall's vehicle had been in the Midlands on the day of the check. Hothersall said he hadn't been driving the vehicle on the A5 that day and someone must have impersonated him, but he couldn't say why Obertelli would ask a driver to do this. Hothersall maintained he had never been stopped by VI and had never met Susan Mullen.

The magistrates found that Hothersall was the driver of the vehicle on the A5, that he had been interviewed by Susan Mullen, and that he had handed in the licence with intent to deceive and obtain employment.They fined him a total of £520 with £250 costs. •


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