Tacho fiddler wins back O-licence after appeal
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By Roger Brown
AN OPERATOR whose O-licence was revoked after one of his trucks was found with a magnet attached to its gearbox sender unit has successfully won it back on appeal.
Upper Tribunal Judge Mark Hinchliffe overturned the decision of Welsh trafic commissioner (TC) Nick Jones, following a May public inquiry (PI), when he revoked the licence of Swansea-based DA Lewis UPVC Installations, and disqualiied the irm’s sole director, David Lewis, for 18 months.
Lewis’s unladen three-axle artic and trailer was stopped by VOSA oficers at Membury Services during a night check in May 2010.
A vehicle examiner carried out a mechanical inspection and found a circular magnet attached to the gearbox sender unit, held in position by plastic tape.
Subsequently, in December 2010, Lewis pleaded guilty to an offence of making a false tachograph record, and was ined £250, with £200 costs.
In February 2011, a warning letter was sent to Lewis, issued on Ofice of the Trafic Commissioner (OTC) letterhead.
However, in April, a call-up letter was sent to the haulier, asking him to attend the PI in Cardiff the following month.
On appeal, solicitor James Backhouse said the presumption must be that a letter from the OTC can be relied upon as operators are “entitled to some inality” . Hinchliffe agreed, saying that proceeding with the PI after the warning letter had been issued was “unfair” and “plainly wrong” .
He added: “We allow the appeal solely because we think it was unfair to proceed with a PI convened some two months after a very clear warning letter covering exactly the same ground had been sent.” Hinchliffe also said the TC had been correct to emphasise the gravity of the magnet offence, and that the repute of Lewis’s company – authorised for ive vehicles and the same number of trailers – now “hangs by a thread” .
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