'Cornish' firm was Gibraltar ase run irom roiiu
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aA company said to • , be running an offshore operation using a British Operator's Licence has had its licence revoked.
Concise Investments, trading as European Trans Services, held a licence for three vehicles
and two trailers with an operating centre at Attlebury Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton. The company's registered address is in Gibraltar with a correspondence address in Saitash, Cornwall.
West Midland Deputy Traffic Commissioner Alan Bourlet said enquiries started after a vehicle was given an immediate prohibition and its drawbar trailer a delayed prohibition in a check at South Mimms.
The vehicle had an 0-licence disc in the company's name but no vehicle excise licence disc was displayed.
The driver was a Portuguese national who spoke little or no English. His previous nine tachograph records showed that no weekly rest had been taken.
The licence application form had been signed by John Donaldson, as transport manager. The directors, Joseph
Vaughan and Clam Harvey both had a Gibraltar' address. Enquiries in Cornwall revealed that the Sattash address belonged to a bungalow where Donaldson's mother lived. She said that her son lived in Portugal from where he operated his business.
Stephen VVesterby, head of the Traffic Area's 0-licensing section, said Donaldson had told him over the phone that he had never used the Nuneaton operating centre.
He had also claimed that the vehicle stopped in the check at South Mimms had earlier been sold to a company called Anna Trading LVA. When the owner of the Nuneaton operating centre was contacted, he said he had
not seen any vehicles there for three years.
Revoking the licence, and disqualifying Donaldson from acting as a transport manager for three years, the Deputy IC said that if Donaldson were to be nominated as a director or a transport manager in any licence application after that period it would have to be heard at a public inquiry, as would any
application involving the company's directors.
He directed that the specified vehicles, if still owned by the company, should not be specified on any other 0licence, and said that his decision would be drawn to the attention of the Portuguese transport authorities.