FedEx cleared on London ban
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• Federal Express and one of its drivers have been cleared of breaking the London Lorry Ban. They appeared before Wells Street magistrates, charged with failing to comply with Condition 5 by failing to minimise the distance travelled on restricted roads on a journey between Enfield and Claphant Rex Billingham, prosecuting, conceded that the chosen route along the A10 was the most direct, hut maintained that the driver should have gone west around the north and south circular roads which included a shorter distance over restricted roads.
Driver Paul Quigley said that during the past three years he had been stopped three or four times on the route that he had used, and had been allowed to continue. To take the circular route would have taken at least half an hour longer and involved him in serious traffic congestion, preventing him from stopping near the delivery point.
Defending, John Backhouse argued that the prosecution had to prove the company and Quigley had failed to minimise the use of restricted roads. In considering "reasonably practical" alternative routes operators had to consider the problems created by using those routes.
The magistrates ordered that the defence costs should be met out of public funds.