Charts go missing
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Ltd being ordered by Bolton Magistrates to pay fines and costs totalling £375.
The company admitted three offences of failing to produce charts but denied a fourth. Other charges of failing to retain tachograph charts, failing to ensure that drivers handed them in within 21 days, and permitting drivers to fail to use tachographs, were withdrawn.
David Heaton, prosecuting, said that when one of the company's drivers was stopped in a check, some offences were discovered. As a result, traffic examiners requested the production of charts for August and September. All the tachograph charts for a driver Eckersley for that period covering 5,900km were missing, and the company was charged with two sample dates. There was one chart missing, covering one day's work, for a driver Platt. There was a similar situation for driver Mahon. However, no evidence was being offered in relation to the charge against the company in that case as it was accepted that the chart had never been handed in and that Mahon had been disciplined by the company.
When interviewed, Eckersiey had said that he had joined the company in August and his previous employer had never asked for any charts. He had kept his charts at home and his wife had destroyed the lot.
For the company, John Backhouse said that it had been moving premises at the time and had not been as diligent as usual. In Platt's case, he was an exemplary driver in regard to the handing in of charts. They had been unable to find a chart relating to a day when he was not driving his usual vehicle. The company accepted that it had been lost during the move.