Archbold discharged
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• Coventrybased Archbold Distribution has been found not guilty of permitting one of its drivers to commit a series of drivers' hours offences.
The company had been accused of five offences of permitting Robert Newbold to exceed 10 hours driving and of 12 offences of permitting him to exceed 41/2 hours' driving without taking the required amount of break. However, at the outset, the prosecution withdrew the charges relating to the daily driving and one of the 41/2 hour offences.
Police Constable Stephen Roberts said that he had stopped a Mercedes being driven by Newbold on 22 February. Newbold's tachograph chart for that day showed that he had driven for seven hours without a break. The chart for the previous day showed that Newbold had driven for five hours 20 minutes with only a 12 minute break. Newbold had said that a headlight had broken the day before and he had carried on driving to get his deliveries done before dark.
Police Constable Paul Wilkinson said an analysis of charts in Newbold's name obtained from the company's Coventry premises showed that on 14 occasions between 4 and 21 February he had exceeded 41/2 hours driving without the required break.
The company's operations manager, Andrew Hibbert, had said that drivers were given verbal and written instructions before driving any of the com pany's vehicles and charts were sent out for computer analysis every six weeks.
Stephen Kirkbright, defending, argued that there was no evidence that anyone at Archbold Distribution who could be described as the "brains of the company" either knew of the offences or had been reckless.
He maintained that Archbold's system complied with the requirements of the EC legislation, saying that periodic checks of tachograph charts were carried out and that steps were taken to prevent drivers offending.