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Bailey OK on axles
Page 18
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• Staffordshire haulier Michael Bailey Transport Services has been cleared of using a vehicle for which a higher rate of excise duty was payable, after Eccles Magistrates ruled that there was no case for the defence to answer.
Bailey and one of his drivers, Alan Wells, were both charged with using a vehicle in an altered condition, bringing it within a higher rate of tax, after police observed that the company's tractive unit was taxed at the concessionary rate for a six-axle attic, but was being used with a tri-axle semitrailer running with a raised axle. Police constable Smith said that Wells had told him that he had been instructed to retract the third axle when partly loaded in order to save tyre wear.
Richard Belfield, defending, maintained that the semi-trailer had not been altered. It was a two-axle or three-axle trailer, depending upon the use of the equipment which raised one of the axles. That equipment was part of the original make-up of the trailer and had not been added later.
Clerk to the magistrates Adrian Turner said that was not a view with which he agreed. The important element, however, was whether the altered manner brought the vehicle within a higher rate of tax — it being conceded by both sides that an unladen twoaxle trailer would not attract the higher tax. The police had not given any evidence as to whether the trailer was laden or not. It was often overlooked that what the driver had to say was hearsay evidence against the employer.
It was open to the prosecution to have called the driver, but no direct evidence had been given that anything which constituted a load was being carried. The magistrates could not conclude that the vehicle was laden, and the case ha$ not been made out.
The case against Wells was adjourned after the prosecution indicated that it wished to have an opportunity of considering whether it was fair to proceed against him in the circumstances.