Scottish haulier caught flagging out with Dutch-registered truck
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By Roger Brown
A DEPUTY trafic commissioner (DTC) has described the decision by revoked Scottish haulier John Pettigrew to register a truck in Holland as a “sham” .
In a written decision following an impounding hearing in July in Bristol, Lester Maddrell, Western Trafic Area DTC said the forfeiture of the haulier’s Volvo HGV by VOSA oficers on 28 October 2010 at Avonmouth had been a lawful and proportionate response. Furthermore, the hearing was told that Pettigrew, trading as John Pettigrew Haulage, had been ‘lagging out’ using a community authorisation in the name of Dutch business Euresco BV between July 2006 and January 2008.
Pettigrew was then disqualiied for four years, and his company had its O-licence revoked in August 2009 for loss of repute and professional competence.
However, from September 2009 to July 2010, a company called KP Transport, of which Pettigrew was a director, was paid £940,013 for haulage work sub-contracted to it by Norfolk Line.
It was discovered that the vehicle used for the work had been registered in the Netherlands.
Another business trading as John Pettigrew Haulage was paid £49,672.08 for similar work between June and August 2010, again using the Dutch-registered truck. The DTC said: “The registration of the vehicle in Holland was a device to circumvent the disqualiication of Mr Pettigrew following the revocation of his licence.
“It is a sham. Had it been allowed to continue, it would have meant that no statutory authority had any real oversight of the vehicle and that the only control over it in the UK would be the power to prohibit at the roadside for mechanical defect or tachograph and drivers’ hours breaches.
“It makes a travesty of operator law and practice because it enables a disqualiied operator to ignore the disqualiication.”