Danger case dropped
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by Stuart Ellis • The owners of a runaway trailer which hit a truck and killed its driver have escaped punishment after the case against them was dropped on a legal technicality.
Barry Mitchell, 52, died from multiple injuries after his tipper was hit by the laden trailer on 23 June 1994. it came adrift after a locking nut came off the towing assembly, swung across the A6 at Cromford, Derbys and hit the tipper, which ran down an embankment. Two other drivers were injured when the trailer collided with a van and its load of timber crashed into a pickup.
Charges were brought after prosecution expert witnesses concluded the trailer coupling eye was so badly worn that it caused the nut to loosen.
However, after a three-day trail at Chesterfield Magistrates Court the case against a Shropshire haulage company was dismissed on a legal technicality.
Stipendiary mag istrate Peter Nuttall said it seemed as though he was "denying justice", but his ruling was correct in law. He was satisfied that Geoffrey Hurdsman and his wife Susan could have been convicted of using a lorry in a dangerous condition if they had been summonsed as a business partnership, trading as WT Hurdsman and Sons.
But the summonses were served against a limited company owned by the Hurdsmans, known as WT Hurdsman and Sons of Old Ifton Colliery, St Martins, Oswestry.
This company, named on the Operator's Licence for the vehicle, had been "dormant" since its launch and did not own the truck or trailer.
The prosecution could not issue fresh summonses as more than six months had passed since the date of the alleged offence.