Haulier and inventor jailed for tacho scam
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by Miles Brignall and Grizelcla Graham
• A haulage firm boss and an electronics specialist who used a sophisticated device to falsify tachograph records have both been jailed. The device they used was the most sophisticated the Vehicle Inspectorate had ever come across, prosecutor Richard Daniel told Norwich Crown Court last week.
This is the first time that an operator and the installer of a device had been convicted of a charge of conspiracy to break the tachograph regulations.
Lorries operated by Michael Smith from a base in Boleness Road, Wisbech, Cambs travelled more than 27,000 miles which were not recorded on their tachograph, the court heard. Smith, of Church Road, Emneth, Norfolk, was jailed for nine months and fined £7.000. Barry Lowe of The Little Mailbags, nr Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, was jailed for six months.
Judge Timothy Lawrence ordered the destruction of the devices, which were installed by Lowe on Smith's instructions.
Both men, who had no previous convictions, admitted to conspiring to falsify tachograph records. Lowe said that Smith, who has been a haulier for more than 30 years, asked him to fit the devices into this vehicles. He was paid £100 for each device. When they were switched on the tachographs went into rest mode and did not record the distance that had been (ravelled.
Tacho device was well h dden.
Switches in the cabs appeared to be innocuous and the devices were only revealed when the dashboards were pulled out, the court heard, A device was first found in one of Smith's vehicles after it was stopped in February last year. They had been fitted in four other vehicles operated by Smith who traded as B&M Smith.
Daniel said a reconstruction of the vehicles' regular runs showed the unrecorded mileage as being 27,788 miles from November 1994 to February 1995.
Nicholas Papadopulos, for Smith, asked for the father of three to be spared from a jail sentence because of his ill health. He had been diagnosed as diabetic and had suffered a heart attack; one of his daughters was now running the business.
Richard Potts, for Lowe, said that when he committed the offence its seriousness had not been at the forefront of his mind.