Overload tickets found in coal depot search
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n. 'LW Tipper operavpiTN tor James Booth (Bolton) has been ordered to pay
fines and costs totalling £1,000 after being convicted of a train weight overload by Chesterfield magistrates.
The -company pleaded not guilty to exceeding the permitted train weight of a 38-tonne artic by more than three tonnes.
The magistrates heard that a number of weight tickets were seized by trading standards officers in a raid on a weighbridge at the Cory Coal premises because they showed various vehicles to have been overloaded.
Statements were read from the weighbridge
operator about The weighing had not the method of be from trading an authorised trading cersstands:yrdinsgotffihestandards officer or weighbridge police officer
had been test ed for accuracy in September 1994 and October 1995; and from an employee of Avery Berkel UK. He said he tested the computer head in February and September 1995 and found it to be working properly.
Defending, Jonathan Lawton said that for the company to be convicted there had to be evidence that the vehi cle was being driven by a driver employed by the company, that it was owned by the company and that it was being used on the company's business.
There was absolutely no evidence of these points, he said. The driver had never been identified or interviewed. The note produced from the consignee referred to "Booth Transport". The Cory Coal weight ticket referred to "Booth" and had not been signed by the driver.
The weighing had not been
en carried out by
carried out by an authorised trading standards officer or police officer, said Lawton. The weighbridge had been tested for accuracy 11 months previously, and not within the six months laid down by the Code of Practice.
There was no evidence about any instructions given to the driver about how to proceed or that the weighing had been carried out in accordance with the codes of practice, he added.
However, the magistrates found the case proved and fined the company E750 with .£250 costs.
An appeal is now being considered.