D oubt over weighbridge Trehidrudcealmliecaernacnece
Page 16
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Two operators were accused of overloading after Trading Standards officers had obtained weighbridge records from the Ind Coope Brewery in Burton on Trent — but they have been acquitted by the town's magistrates.
JM Gorry & Son of Morecambe and driver Geoffrey Dunn each pleaded not guilty to exceeding the train weight of a 38-tonne artic. Prosecuting, Roger Constantine said the weighbridge records showed that a vehicle loaded with barley and driven by Dunn had been weighed on entering the brewery. The train weight was found to be 40,300kg; an excess of 2,300kg (6.1%).
Royston Cartwright, security team leader at the brewery, said that he operated the weighbridge and was responsible for the weighbridge records. Questioned by John Backhouse, defending, Cartwright agreed that on this occasion the load was refused and the vehicle was also weighed as it went out. He could not explain why the incoming and outgoing weight differed by 80kg; drivers were told if vehicles were overloaded and there was a large area where the excess could be offloaded before they went out on the road.
Principal Trading Standards officer Anthony Shaw said he had tested the weighbridge last November. He had found it to be within the prescribed limits.
Backhouse said that the whole process of weighing vehicles clearly relied upon the compu ter. If the prosecution wished to rely on the computer's accuracy a certificate of its accuracy had to be produced.
Gorry was found not guilty. In the second case, Leeds haulier Graham Guy, and his driver Malcolm Pilkington, pleaded not guilty to similar offences.
Constantine said that the prosecution would be offering no evidence.