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Ten-year licence ban for Yorkshire operator
Page 8
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NORTH-EASTERN Traffic Commissioner Tom Ma cartney has delivered a damning verdict on a Yorkshire operator whose general manager had previously been convicted of tacho fraud.
Garforth-based Whitkirk Produce has now had its 32-vehicle licence revoked and been banned from holding a licence for 10 years. Its directors Michael and Patricia Grant have been banned from holding an 0-Licence indefinitely.
In March, Whitkirk's former company secretary and general manager, Jane Grant, was given a 240-hour community punishment order and ordered to pay £100,000 costs after pleading guilty to conspiring with drivers to falsify tachograph charts. The company was fined £30,000 with £100,000 costs (0119 March).
The TC said the company had encouraged, and sometimes pressured and instructed, drivers to break the drivers' hours and tachograph rules. Officers at the firm had compounded the situation by hiding tacho charts and shredding some in order to hamper Vosa's investigation. The TC concluded that the repute of the nominated transport managers, Michael and Elizabeth Grant, had been lost.
In disqualifying the directors, he said that although they appeared to have had little interest or involvement in the company,it was their individual and collective responsibility to comply with the obligations of an 0-licence holder. They either turned a blind eye within their family firm or were complicit in its activities.
Whitkirk claims that it has been persecuted.