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Shearings is fined
Page 16
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I Coach operator Smiths Shearings was ordered to pay fines and costs totalling ,E29,100 after Wigan magistrates convicted it of 138 offences of failing to produce tachograph records. The company is to appeal.
Smiths Shearings had denied 87 charges of permitting drivers to fail to use tachographs; 138 of failing to ensure that drivers handed charts in within 21 days; and 138 of failing to produce records (CM 13-19 April).
The prosecution indicated that the charges had been laid in the alternative, and, after convicting the company of failing to produce records, the magistrates ordered that the remainder be marked "not proceeded with".
John Backhouse, defending, argued that the prosecution had failed to prove its case in a number of vital respects.
He maintained that there was no evidence in each indi vidual case of who the driver of the vehicle was; that the driver was an "employee" of the company; that the vehicle was equipped with a tachograph; and that it was engaged on operations to which the EC tachograph regulations applied.