Tampered tachos: fourteen fined
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• Fourteen drivers employed by J&M Heathcote of Stalybridge and two associated companies were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £1,918 when they admitted driving and working excessive hours and the falsification of tachograph charts before the Dukinfield magistrates.
One driver was dealt with previously by the court (CM August 23) while alleged offences against another 10 were adjourned until October, warrants being issued in respect of two drivers who failed to attend. Adjourned until October 22 were 157 charges of permitting hours and tachograph offences and of aiding and abetting the falsification of tachograph charts against J&M Heathcote and its transport manager Brian Ilughes; two charges of permitting hours offences against Thameside Skip Hire; four similar charges against Bellrose; 162 charges of permitting hours and tachograph offences and aiding and abetting the falsification of tachograph records against a director, Michael Heathcote and four charges of permitting hours offences against a second director, David Knight.
Christopher Worthy, prose
cuting for the North Western Licensing Authority, said the offences came to light when tachograph charts for a two month period were checked.
The false records involved missing mileage where the drivers had driven without charts in their tachographs or with the tachograph heads open to hide periods of driving. In mitigation the drivers said they worked long hours for low wages. They had been threatened with the sack, the company's attitude being that if they did not do what was asked there were thousands of unemployed drivers only too willing to take over. They had had to do what they had done to earn a living wage, 190,2100 a week take home pay being very low for Class I drivers. They were under considerable pressure, being paid a percentage of their vehicle's earnings.
Fining the drivers amounts varying between and £230 the Chairman of the magistrates said the fines could have been very much heavier but the magistrates had a lot of sympathy for all that had been said by the drivers and that was reflected in the nominal fines being imposed.