TANKER CASE: JUDGE SUMS UP
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Prosecution Claim Company Realized Acid Runs Were Impossible: Defence Blame Organization
WHEN Bulk Liquid Transport, Ltd., undertook the transport of acid " from Billingham to Grimsby they were fully aware that they were
taking on a contract which could not be done by drivers in the permitted hours. Consequently, everyone connected with the operation knew that the law was being broken. This was submitted. by Mr. R. A. Lyons, Q.C., at Leeds Assizes, when he Made his final speech for the prosecution against the company and five officials, who denied conspiracy and inducing perjury. (The Commercial Motor, last week.) At the close of the case on Monday, Mr. Justice Donovan said he would study his nhtes -the following day and sum up to-the jury on Wednesday.
..There_ were five charges, of conspiracy coneeining drivers' hours; .rest and records against the .company and the five Skelley, manager, L. I. Hickson, assistant manager, C.' Kershaw, foreman, C. Burkenshaw, clerk, and W. Jennings, foreman driver. Skelley and Kershaw. also faced two cotints of inducing perjury by 'encouraging drivers to enter false information on documents, together with alternative counts of aiding and abetting:
Skelley had Said that hejoined Bulk Liquid Transport in December. 1956, and was sent to their Manchester depot. He returned to the Gildersorne headquarters about November 12, 1957, and until then had had nothing to do
with vehicle 'operationi. _ . . . .
• "Administration in Chaos" He found the administration at ,
Gildersome in a state of chaos. In particular, drivers' log sheets had not been checked for five months. He knew of the sulphuric acid contract for the Billingham-Grimsby run and had been told 'somedrivers were doing it without difficulty in 12 hours and others would not. Might vehicles Were double-shifting on -the job. " •
Answering Mr. Lyons, he said that on checking, log sheets for three months he found driver Smith completely wrong after comparisons with the Servis card of Murray, his co-driver. Having had complaints about slacking he decided to dismiss Smith, but before doing So called him to Gildersome on the night of November 27 and left the log sheets for him with a note to set out the correct times.
Although he knew the traffic examiner was due again the next day, these events had nothing to do with it. He had not had dealings with the other drivers in this way and had not sought to get any log sheets "cooked,"
It was untrue to say that payments were not made on the times shown on the log sheets because they were false. The weekly time sheets had been destroyed on his instructions before it was realized that a prosecution was likely.
Mr. Lyons pointed out that log sheet after log sheet, including those checked by Skelley after alteration, showed exactly 12 hours' work, but were utterly wrong against the times proved by the witnesses. The onlY weekly time sheet produced in evidence showed discrepancies with the log sheets. The company's payroll showed that on an occasion when Smith's log sheets showed 57 hours in a week,' he was paid for 118. Similarly, Craven was paid 1" 102 hours instead of 60.
Skelley MI:plied that it was liossible. that some of the total was back pay. Asked why log sheets for Smith, Jones,Murray and Botterill were not produced until specifically asked for by the traffic examiner on his third visit, Skelley said the sheets were originally asked for under vehicle numbers and it took time to sort. ahem out into name order.
Questioning' Hickson, Mr. Lyons suggested that the one man responsible for policy was Mr. Peter Slater, an exiremely successful man, who, starting as a lorry driver, now verged on being a millionaire. A very determined man, who did not know the meaning of the word "impossible," he was responsible for contracts and instituted the 12-hour shifts for the Billingham run.
False Times Alleged
Mr. Hickson replied that all he knew was that Mr. Slater was in control. Asked to explain how Bulletin came to work 95 hours in a six-day week, he said the _.organization was hopelessly inefficient at the time —many of the drivers put in false hours. Bottcrill had done so previously when they both worked for Harold Wood, Ltd. He engaged him again because ,Bulk Liquid Transport were desperate for drivers, as work was coming in_ so rapidly. More than £300,000 was spent on new vehicles in 1957, and the company had more than their share of "dead heads" amongst the drivers.
Closing the company's defence, Mr. F. H. Lawton, Q.C., submitted that the raising of the speed limit for heavy vehicles, with the inevitable desire of employers to speed up schedules, involving loss of pay to drivers, was pregnant with trouble for Bulk Liquid Transport.
Disgruntled drivers were unreliable witnesses, and, of those called for the prosecution, Smith had himself said that he had a reputation as a trouble-maker. Cluderay had stated that the unions were telling drivers to keep speeds down unless there was a wage increase, and drivers were thus refusing to do a journey in the time that previously had been regular.
The Scrvis cards produced showed driving time well under 11 hours, and the question of exceeding the speed limit was not necessarily connected with compiracy. Averaging 25 m.p.h., the journey could easily be done in permitted hours.
Because of rapid' expansion, paperwork had been neglected and this, coupled with drivers' notorious slackness in keeping records up to date, had led to Skelley being brought in to tighten up discipline.
Mr. Lawton said suggestions had been made that Peter Slater, Ltd., and Bulk Liquid Transport were one and the same company, but whereas Mr. Peter Slater and his wife owned,90 per cent. of the shares of Peter Slater, Ltd., Mr. Slater had a mere 19 per cent, of the Bulk Liquid Transport shares. .
Prosecution's Case Mr. Lyons submitted that there was a host of indications that, Bulk Liquid Transport had ridden rough-shod over the law and, to cover up, had resorted ,to, large-scale falsification of records. The prosecution relied on the large number of hours it had been proved that drivers had worked, the making out of new log sheets, the withholding of certain documents from the traffic examiner, and the evidence concerning distances and vehicles used.
The figures on many of the log sheets produced could have been rubberstamped, he said. For example, Brook was shown as doing 16 out of 17 journeys in exactly 12 hours, yet evidence of arrival and departure at Billingham and Grimsby did not agree with the log-sheet times. A log sheet by Smith, one of those made out on the night of November 27, showed 12 hours exactly, finishing at Gildersome. In fact, Smith stayed the night at Derby en route from Howden to Birmingham, and he was on the road for 16 or 17 hours.
"Everyone Knew" Mr. Lyons suggested that the company took en a contract which they knew full well could not regularly be done in the permitted hours and, consequently, all concerned knew that the law was being broken. Striking corroboration of the drivers' evidence was the fact that they were being paid for an average of 16 hours a day.
Mr. T. A. Featnley-Whittingstall, Q.C., for the five officials, submitted that there was no evidence of a deliberate plot. The whole case had been focused on one run during a period in November, but Bulk Liquid Transport had more than 60 drivers and a number of contracts at that time. All these men had other work to do. Kershaw and Butkenshaw were employed by Peter Slater, Ltd., so they had little interest in the Billingham run. The only evidence against Skelley was that he was continually asking why drivers could not do the run in the time— the very opposite to encouraging them to work longer hours.
The -drivers had concocted their records, he claimed, not only to deceive the Licensing Authority, but also their own employers