Squire's offences: 21 down, 30 to go
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In February fines and costs tailing £1,015 were imposed the five drivers concerned M, October 18/December 6, 180 and February 21).
For the West Midlands ce.nsing Authority, Mark' athews said there was no ipute that the drivers had mmitted the offences, the ise was whether Mr Squires had own what was going on.
Observation of Mr Squire's ivers in both Staffordshire and :otland had revealed blatant sregard for regulations. On ie day alone, for example, four the five drivers had made se entries and exceeded their iurs. Mr Squire must have own this was happening, it as alleged.
Squires Transport operated ily five artics and its small size ould have enabled Mr Squires to keep a careful watch on his drivers' activities.
Traffic examiner Keith Helm said that he had seen some of the drivers talking to Mr Squire on a lay-by in Staffordshire when their records showed that they had spent the night away.
Mr Squire claimed that the drivers were paid on the hours work shown on the records, and denied that he had been aware of the hours that they had been working. He had trusted his drivers and they had let him down, he claimed, Questioned by Alan Bentley, defending, Mr Helm agreed that the records seemed to be correct but admitted drivers could not be supervised all the time.
Referring the Magistrates to a report in CM in which charges relating to false entries against WBS Transport had been dismissed (CM, December 13 1980), Mr Bentley said that to be convicted of such serious charges were tantamount to fraud — to suspect or have reason to believe that records were false was not enough.
When drivers deliberately set out to falsify records, how was the operator to know? Mr Squires could not be expected to keep a diary note of when he spoke to drivers.