Fined over tachos and tax
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• Central Roadways has been heavily penalised by Dudley Magistrates for a series of tax and tachograph records offences.
Despite claiming that its tachograph records had been stolen, Central was ordered to pay fines, costs and back-duty totalling £3,477.49p for failing to produce records and for running an untaxed vehicle.
Central Roadways — of Brierley Hill — admitted one offence of using an untaxed vehicle and 11 offences of failing to produce tachograph records.
Barbara Stubbs, prosecuting for the West Midlands Traffic Area, said that traffic examiner Malcolm Seward had looked into the company's affairs as he believed that it had been running untaxed vehicles. He asked for the production of tachograph records. Only a few had been produced, but those revealed that one vehicle had been used on 63 occasions without an excise licence. Despite further requests, the missing records had not been forthcoming.
When interviewed, George Atterbury, the company secretary, had claimed they had gone missing after a breakin which had not been reported to the police.
Seward was not satisfied with the claim that the charts had been stolen, said Stubbs, and the charges before the court were in fact specimen offences, there being one charge per vehicle.
Central Roadways had been convicted on a number of previous occasions for running untaxed vehicles, said Stubbs.
Defending, Paul Shaw said that the company had been in serious trouble over cash flow almost from its inception three and a half years ago. There had since been an injection of capital, its bankers were now providing substantial overdraft facilities and efforts had been made to prevent any repetition of its previous conduct.
As far as the tachograph records were concerned, the company had had three breakins, the first of which was reported to the police. Nothing seemed to be done, and as nothing valuable was taken on the other occasions, they were not reported.
The magistrates fined the company MO for running an untaxed vehicle and £2,750 for failing to produce tachograph records. It was also ordered to pay back-duty of 2257.49p with £70 prosecution costs.
After Shaw had said that Central Roadways was not in a position to pay the total sum straight away, the magistrates ordered that it be paid off at the rate of 2400 per month.