CASE TWO
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Driver gets 16 months for tacho fraud
A SCOTTISH TRUCK driver has been jailed for 16 months for tachograph fraud.
Carlisle Crown Court was told that in September 2011, a black Scania driven by Alexander McNicol, 53, from Larkhall, Lanarkshire, was stopped by Vosa during an enforcement check.
An analysis of the 11 analogue charts seized, undertaken by Cumbria Police, showed nine occasions of failing to keep records, one occasion when the tacho chart was shown to be a false record and one occasion when the driving record ed was five hours and 18 minutes before a break was taken.
In December 2011, McNicol was stopped again at Todhills near Carlisle, and on this occasion he was driving a Scania goods vehicle on behalf of a Shropshire haulage firm.
A check of his driving licence revealed that it had been revoked by the DVLA in October 2011 after he failed to surrender it to have penalty points added.
In August 2011, at South Lakes Magistrates’ Court, McNicol had received a community sentence of 180 hours, following an earlier investigation into drivers’ hours breaches and other offences.
Sergeant Graeme Hodgson from the Cumbria Police road policing unit says: “Cumbria Constabulary and our partners at Vosa take very seriously the sys tematic falsification of tachograph charts. These kind of investigations don’t happen overnight, we will continue to enforce drivers’ hours and the mechanical condition of vehicles at the roadside while undertaking the longer-term investigations.”
Close co-operation
This case is an example of how close co-operation between police and Vosa officers can lead to non-compliant drivers being punished and taken off the road.