Court Asks Authority to Apologize
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IN a judgment read in Lanark Sheriff • Court, last Friday, Sheriff Wilton, K.C., severely criticized the Licensing Authority. The Authority had brought a charge against Alexander Brown and Co., haulier, Symington, alleging that one of the concern's lorries had made a journey from Manchester to Symington without a proper record of the trip being made.
The Sheriff found in favour of the concern and its driver. In his judgment, he said • " This case shows the desperate state to which officials will sometimes reduce themselves by adopting the face-saving methods prevalent in China. They do not perceive that insinuations made as in this case have made the Traffic Commissioners (Licensing Authority) look positively ridiculous. "Two road examiners deposed that at 4 a.m. on the date in question, they saw the lorry near Gretna. They did not pursue the lorry, Nit later visited the garage at Symington and found no records regarding the alleged journey. Before proceedings were raised, the firm assured the Commissioners that, the information was a mistake on the part of the road inspectors. The inspectors held to their evidence and the chief inspector did not shrink from suggesting the deliberate faking of the records.
"In my judgment, this prosecution should never have been brought I regret that the respondents should have been harassed by such proceedings, and put to such trouble and so much irrecoverable outlay and law costs.
" I venture to express the hope that the Commissioners will have the grace to intimate their full apologies to the firm and its driver for the utterly baseless imputations of fabricating records to defeat the ends of justice . . by the chief road examiner in the case, for no reason other than that he thinks he and his assistants are infallible."
The fiscal, Mr. W. Tennant, asked for a stated case.