Ridgeway warned to attend
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• A Derbyshire company, whose managing director said that he was too busy to attend disciplinary proceedings before a licensing authority, has had its licence suspended.
Ridgeway Poultry of Nether Heage, near Be!per, held a four-vehicle restricted licence. It had been called before the Eastern Licencing Authority Brigadier Compton Boyd following the issue of an immediate prohibition and convictions in December 1987 for using a vehicle with defective brakes, a defective silencer and defective parts, for which it had been fined a total of £930.
Vehicle examiner Ronald Alderton said that he had visited the company three days before the inquiry. The company's managing director, a Mr Karim, had stated that he was very busy and would be unable to attend because he was trying to get things organised on the farm. The company had been prosecuted by the county council over hygenic conditions at the farm, for which it had been fined 217,000 plus £5,000 costs. When told that he ought to attend the public inquiry, Karim had said he was fed up with everything, he was too busy and would like it postponed until January.
Alderton said he had visited the company in July 1986 after a vehicle had been prohibited in a roadside check and a prosecution was pending. He had been told that the maintenance was undertaken by two commercial garages in Birmingham. The company had no facilities of its own and the farm, which was a chicken breeding and killing establishment, was in a very poor condition.
At that time the company had applied for two additional vehicles, which it had already been operating without authority. The maintenance records had been unsatisfactory.
Maintenance facilities had still been non-existent when he had made a follow-up visit later in the year, said Alderton. He had examined one vehicle at the local test station, imposing an immediate prohibition for two defective tyres and an exhaust which had been com pletely detached and holed. , Suspending the licence until a further public inquiry could be arranged, Boyd said he was satisfied that the reason Karim had given for not attending was frivolous. He was prepared to give Karim a further opportunity of attending and explaining — but in the meantime the public had to be protected.
Warning that the licence would be revoked if Karim failed to attend, Boyd said that he would also.require full details of the company's financial situation.