Dane fined £6,000 for UK cabotage
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A DANISH HAULIER was fined £6,000 at Norwich Crown Court last week in the first " cabotage " case to be heard in this country.
The English co-director of one of the haulage firms involved in the cabotage—using foreign registered tractive units for domestic work in the United Kingdom in order to escape vehicle taxation and either transport regulations— was fined £600, And that firm, with a head office in Essex, had to give an undertaking not to trade again in the UK as a haulage business; contempt of court pro ceedings will he instituted if the promise Is broken.
The fines came after Mr John Marriage, QC, prosecuting, told " the story of two men whose job appears to have been to make as much money as possible out of the road haulage business in this country and in so doing conducted the affairs of their business in a way which showed a total disregard for the safety of road users in this country."
He outlined " frightening" periods of excess hours worked by drivers; " incredible" journeys claimed by drivers; three accidents; over-weight loads coming into 'this country from Denmark; lorry drivers being faced with court ,appearances —as many as 61 in one case— for haulage offences; and one short period when 52 prohibition notices were served against the firm.
The Dane, Arne C. Kristiansen, 33, of Orrnslev, Denmark, was fined £2,000 in each of three cases which he admitted; conspiracy to contravene part 'of the Transport Act 1968, designed to compel lorry drivers to work hours protecting the public against driver fatigue; conspiracy to contravene an EEC Regulation 'con cerning maximum driving hours and rest periods; and conspiracy to commit cabotage by causing, permitting, ordering and 'encouraging drivers of foreign goods vehicles and trailers registered in Denmark to carry goods 'loaded at one place in the UK for delivery at another UK destination without holding an operator's licence and without being on an international journey.
Raymond John Clayton, 28, of. Wick Lane, Dovercourt, Essex, was fined £200 in each case after admitting •the offences, Both men denied a further four linked charges. Kristiansen's parent company, AGS Continental -Transport A/-S Denmark, and the English subsidiary, AGS Continental Transport Ltd, which gave the undertaking, each denied all seven charges.
Formal "not guilty" verdicts against the companies were recorded after the prosecution accepted the pleas. The four charges against the men were left on file.
The scale of cabotage was greatest last year, said Mr Marriage, when 21 tractive units were involved. Six were used in 1973.
Figures were disputed by Mr Michael McMullen, for Kristiansen, who, he said, was an old-fashioned capitalist building up an 'expanding-business covering the whole of Europe and involved more With Continental regulation's than those in force domestically in the UK.
Kristiansen's 'lorries—among up to £4m worth of 'equipment owned by 'his 'companies—were "the best, strongest and most expensive" in Europe. He had not set out deliberately to flout the law.
Mr George Khayat, for Clayton, said 'his client played a Minor part in the offences, being only a " glorified office boy."