False hours cost £3,331
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The partners in Maghull, Merseysideb a se d Haulage Technique, and two drivers were ordered to pay £3,331 in fines and costs after they admitted a series of drivers hours and tachograph offences before Wigan magistrates.
Stephen Molyneaux of Hoscar, near Burscough, pleaded guilty to three offences of falsifying tachograph charts and two of exceeding the daily driving limit. He was fined £531 with £30 costs. Gary Pilling of Skelmersdale pleaded guilty to two offences of falsifying tachograph charts, and eight offences of exceeding the daily driving limit and taking insufficient daily rest. He was fined £300 with £30 costs.
The firm's partners, Alan Adair and Anthony Westwood, each pleaded guilty to permitting Piling to make false tachograph records, exceed the daily driving limit and take insufficient daily rest. Westwood also admitted three offences of falsifying charts, two offences of exceeding the daily driving limit, and one daily rest offence.
Prosecuting, Jonathon Rhide said numerous offences in many parts of the UK were discovered after an artic driven by Molyneaux was stopped by police. Vehicles had been blatantly driven over the hours' limits. John Backhouse, defending, said the firm had been formed 18 months ago by Adair and Westwood, who had both previously been lorry drivers. Their main work was the carriage of produce imported through Sheerness. They had difficulty in finding outward traffic and had to rely on sub-contracted work, taking jobs that nobody else wanted to do. It was extremely hard to tie the outward traffic in with the return journey from Sheerness. They realised it was going wrong and had now managed to obtain a contract for outward traffic.
Adair had taken the responsibility for dealing with the tachograph charts, said Backhouse, but he was so busy trying to get the business on its feet that he did no more than file the charts. If they had been checked it would have been obvious that offences were being committed. The partners had put too much emphasis on setting up the business. It was barely holding its own financially.
Adair was fined £1,100 and Westwood £1,280, with £30 prosecution costs each.