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Belgium licence 'sham' leads to ban
Page 33
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Helping a disqualified colleague to operate will get you a lifetime ban. Mike Jewell reports.
A SUFFOLK operator has been banned from ever holding an Operator's Licence again after a sham in which it registered trucks in Belgium to enable another disqualified haulier to operate.
The company, Mendlesham-based Heavypak Haulage. was guilty of a litany of other offences. It failed to produce tachograph records when Jemanded by police and the Vehicle Inspectorate; it breached drivers' hours and employed a Jisqualified driver; and the company's director was uncooperative when police investigated ac:idents involving two trucks.
0-licence clisqualfication
Heavypak's licence has been revoked and the :ompany and its managing director Garith Banham disqualified indefinitely from holding or Dbtaining an 0-licence in any traffic area.
The company had been called before the Eastern Traffic Commissioner Geoffrey Simms because a Belgian company. Romantiek BVBA, 1which Garith Banham was a director, regularly kept all 14 Belgian-registered vehicles at Mendlesham and carried out domestic haulage in the UK. Banham 's son Gary, tra ding as Powerfavour from the same site, had had his licence revoked and been disqualified from holding an 0-licence indefinitely in October 2002.
The TC said links between Heavypak Haulage and Romantiek with Mendlesham Group Haulage and Banham Trailer & Driver Hire — both seemingly owned by Gary Banham — had come to light. The Belgian authorities had revoked Romantiek's licence for 45 days while their licensing requirements were fulfilled.
Suffolk Police testified that Romantiek was largely conducted by Gary Banham as a means to overcome his disqualification. The police also encountered difficulties in obtaining information from Garith Banham following accidents in the West Midlands and Leicestershire in which two Romantiek trucks were involved.
Garith Banham said he was not currently operating any vehicles under the Heavypak licence but he couldn't explain why three vehicles were currently specified on the licence or account for the whereabouts of the identity discs.
Twenty vehicles were currently operated under the Belgian licence, which was revoked for a period of 45 days because of an apparent lack of control at the company's base at Lo Reninge. The remedy had been to engage staff and a CPC holder in Belgium to satisfy the Belgian authorities Poor service in Belgium in dealing with an application was the reason for the unauthorised use of two additional vehicles, he said. He conceded. however, that eight Romantiek vehicles suspended from use by the Belgian government had been operated on the Heavypak licence.
Garith Banham said that his son was employed by Mendlesham Group Haulage, dealing with all the customers and drivers. Gary Banharn's business, Banham Trailer & Driver Hire, employed and paid the drivers which it supplied to Romantiek and he checked photocopies of driving licences. One belonged to a disqualified driver who was involved in an accident being investigated by West Midlands Police.
'Calculated disregard'
Making the revocation and disqualification orders. the TC said that there had been a cynical and calculated disregard for the laws relating to the licensing and taxation of vehicles in the UK. Garith Banham had been evading the law to the extent that he had enabled a disqualified person to continue to operate goods vehicles by deceit, said the TC.
The TC said a recurring theme of all the Banhams' activities, past and present, was the failure to produce tachograph records when requested to do so by the police and the VI.They had felt beyond the jurisdiction of Suffolk Police by pleading establishment in Belgium.That, concluded the TC, was nothing but a sham. •