• Following a visit by a vehicle examiner to its
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premises, a Spalding, Lines, company was requested to present three vehicles and three trailers for inspection at a nearby DoE testing centre. The resulting issue of five immediate and one delayed GV9s brought the operator, Healey and Dobney Ltd, before the East Midlands LA, Mr C. M. Sheridan at Lincoln on Tuesday.
The court was told that the company had previously attracted GV9s in addition to 70 convictions in magistrates' courts, several for gross overloading.
Giving evidence of visits to the operator's premises a vehicle examiner said that no records of inspection or maintenance were available either at the premises or at a garage to which he was referred. He had subsequently made an arrangement whereby this situation should be improved although on a visit on May 8 he had found defects on two of three trailers examined.
Mr A. Dobney, a director of the company, said that much of his trouble had been due to the inexperience of his son who had been in charge of the vehicles. Mr Dabney was now taking personal charge and an improvement would be made.
Summing up the LA referred to the case as a very serious one. "No records, GV9s, numerous convictions — ample grounds for revoking the licence. The lack of supervision leads inevitably to your vehicles being unsafe." However, he hoped Mr Dobney's personal intervention would improve matters, otherwise he warned the licence was at serious risk. As a token he would refuse the application before him for one extra vehicle. He also directed that the margin of one trailer be removed and that one vehicle of the four specified on the licence would be curtailed for one month.