Tribunal backs rejection
Page 19
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The rejection of Dolan Tipper Services' application for an 0-licence has been confirmed by the Transport Tribunal because Dolan had failed to mention a conviction for overloading.
The company, which held a licence in the Western Traffic Area, had applied for a new licence for four vehicles following a move to Marlow, Bucks.
Eastern Traffic Commissioner Geoffrey Simms refused the application because the company and its transport manager, Peter Dolan, were not of good repute: they had failed to disclose the conviction, which occurred in July 1999.
Dolan had told the TC that the application form had been completed by an assistant who had wrongly ticked the "no" box in answer to the conviction question. He admitted that he had signed the form without properly checking it.
The TC concluded that Dolan had failed to exercise the appropriate degree of care in completing the form and had made a false statement. He referred to a previous Tribunal decision involving Bradford Cargo that: The completion of an application form for a goods vehicle operator's Licence is a serious and significant matter from the point of view of the public, quite apart from the interests of the applicant company itself. Any licensing authority is entitled to assume that the appropriate degree of care and accuracy has been employed by the person who completes an application form for a licence."
Jim Duckworth, for the company, argued that the TC had relied excessively on that ease and that his conclusion was not one which any TC could reasonably have reached.
Dismissing the company's appeal, the Tribunal said: "We have to say that we emphatically reject this submission. While we accept that the facts in the Bradford Cargo case were more serious, the principle then stated goes to the heart of the licensing system."
The Tribunal endorsed the TC's sympathetic approach to the possibility of a fresh application from the company. in view of Dolan's contrition they considered it an appropriate case for early consideration of a new application.