• The police have particularly succeeded in an appeal against
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a decision of the Wetherby magistrates dismissing 17 alleged offences arising out of the movement of a mobile crane along the motorway by Hewden Stuart Heavy Cranes (CM March 7).
The company had denied using an excluded vehicle on the motorway, overloading each of the six crane axles and the four axles of what the prosecution alleged was a trailer, gross overloads of both crane and alleged trailer, two offences of exceeding the permitted length and two of exceeding the permitted width. The prosecution said that the 140-tonne crane had been observed carrying some sort of trailer along the M62 motorway and mobile cranes were not permitted to tow trailers. However the defence maintained that the alleged trailer was in fact a gib and bogey forming part of the crane.
Lord Justice Parker said that it was plain that the mobile crane, because of its construction and length, was in effect one vehicle split in two in order to be able to manoeuvre round bends and accordingly the charges relating to the trailer were rightly dismissed.
The charges relating to the use of a vehicle with excess axle weights however, ought not to be dismissed and to that extent the appeal was allowed with a direction to the magistrates to hear those charges.