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LA clerk causes chaos
Page 20
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Al" licensing applications will have to be re-heard following adminis
trative errors.
The High Court was asked last week to sort out the legal tangle caused by an office junior at the Eastern Traffic Area who caused widespread mayhem by stuffing documents away in his desk drawers.
A total of 64 licensing applications were affected by the actions of the un-named clerk, who was subsequently sacked from his job at the Nottingham offices of the Licensing Authority for the Eastern Traffic Area.
Ian Ashford-Thom, representing Attorney General Sir Patrick Mayhew QC, told the court: "Documents were not processed in the proper way but secreted to drawers and left to languish there."
Representations made by members of the public in connection with several applications for 0-licences were hidden away and did not come to Light until after licences had been granted or varied.
Mayhew, acting in his role of protector of the public interest, was asking Lord Justice Woolf and Justice Saville to quash decisions made in five cases to grant or vary licences so that representations relating to them could at last be taken into account. Agreeing to the request, Woolf described it as "an unfortunate situation".
He said the quashing orders would not take effect for 21 days so that licence holders could continue to operate their vehicles lawfully until their cases were reconsidered.
Late; a legal spokesman for the LA said: "This is something that has never happened before. It has taken considerable time and expense to recover the situation."
The five licence holders affected are: Grantham Metals, of Grantham, Lines; EF and GA Gesson and CS Corby, trading as SAPS, of Oakharn, Leics; Jade Transport, Wellingborough, Northants; Norman Gould, Stoney Stanton, Leics; and Marshall Barry (Lincoln).