Driver fined over tacho chart fiddle
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• Lorry driver Michael Bennett was last week fined 2500 and ordered to pay £250 prosecution costs at Leeds Crown Court for falsifying tachograph charts after being warned by Judge Vivian Hurwitz that the punishment could have been far worse.
Two years' imprisonment was the maximum penalty for the grave offence of falsifying tacho charts, said the judge, and the crime was a serious one which could lead to tired HGV drivers putting other road users' lives at risk.
Peter Charlesworth, prosecuting, said that Bennett had worked for Highway Express and that on 22 June last year he had been given goods to deliver in Newcastle and at Thorp Arch, near Wetherby.
He had telephoned the company transport manager at 16.30hrs on the afternoon of 22 June to say that he had not completed his deliveries and that he would have to stay overnight in Newcastle. The transport manager had been suspicious, and had investigated the matter before finding discrepancies on Bennett's charts. Bennett had been sacked and had later admitted that he had come home from Newcastle on that day.
Defending, John Lewis said Bennett had sought to conceal the duration of the journey but had not claimed any expenses from his employer because the Highway Express transport manager had told him that he should have been able to complete his deliveries in the day.
Hurwitz said that seemed to suggest that he would have claimed expenses if his employer had not remonstrated with him. In modern society fiddling was regarded as a smart thing to do, but it was just another word for theft, said the judge. For concealing his driving time, Bennett deserved a financial penalty.
If Bennett had been seeking to fiddle his employer, he would have found that it had been a very expensive exercise, said the judge. He ordered Bennett to pay the fines and costs at the rate of £25 a week, with 30 days' imprisonment for default.