S&R Sinclair pays for tax offences
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• Using a community author-isation with intent to deceive, and using an untaxed vehicle, cost Stevenston, Ayrshire-based S&R Sinclair .“70 in fines and costs, After the company pleaded guilty to the offences Stratford upon Avon magistrates, being fined it £50 for the community authorisation offence and £120 for the vehicle excise duty offence with £300 costs.
Beverely Bell, prosecuting for the DOT, said that when one of the company's vehicles was stopped in a check the driver, director Stephen Sinclair, pro
duced a community authorisation in the name of SGB Transport. Such authorisations were not transferable between operators. The vehicle was displaying an expired tax disc.
Defending, Michael Carless said that Sinclair had formerly been employed as a driver by SGB Transport. He bought the vehicle and trailer he had been driving for the company and obtained his own 0-licence. He continued to do exactly the same work as before, can-ying for SGB as an owner-driver.
He was wrongly told that he could run on the company's community authorisations and had produced the authorisation when checked previously without any problems. Sinclair had been
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returning from a journey, carrying groupage to Verona, when stopped. If he had realised there was anything wrong he would not have produced the authorisation.
SGB had gone into liquidation and a new company, North British Exports, was carrying the same traffic, operating from the same premises. Sinclair had thought that SBG had merely changed its name, without realising it had gone into liquidation.
As far as the vehicle excise duty offence was concerned, the tax disc had expired while Sinclair was on the Continent and he taxed the vehicle immediately on his return. He had mistakenly thought that he had 14 days grace in which to renew the tax,