Fezcourt licence refused
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• Tachograph clock time readings can differ by as much as 30 minutes, if individual charts are manufactured inaccurately.
This was revealed by Department of Transport traffic examiner Malcolm Davey last week during the hearing of police objections to the late renewal of the six-vehicle-andtrailer licence held by Fezcourt Felixstowe before Eastern Deputy Licensing Authority Charles Arnold-Baker. The DLA refused the company a Licence, on the grounds that it was unfit in the light of 152 convictions recorded against both the company and its director and transport manager Paul Douch, dating back to 1985.
Shown two tachograph charts with a discrepancy of 10 minutes between them, DTp spokesman Davey said he was aware of such discrepancies and he had seen as much as 30 minutes' difference.
Police Constable Douglas Sturman, of Suffolk Constabulary, produced a schedule of over 90 convictions against the company, and 34 against Douch, going back to 1985.
The offences against the company included the operation of vehicles without excise licences and the whole gambit of drivers' hours and tachograph offences, said Sturman.
In February, the then company secretary Derek Richardson had been convicted of speeding, having no insurance, using a forged driving licence and a forged HGV driving licence. On 30 September, the company had been convicted of permitting Raymond Archer to drive without an HGV driving licence.
Sturman said that the company's attitude to the drivers' hours and tachograph law seemed to be that it could not be bothered and that it was an unnecessary burden and inconvenience. There was currently £11,000 outstanding in fines and back-duty and a VAT debt of 27,000.
Fezcourt company secretary Michael Hobby agreed that the company had operated without a licence before being granted a licence which expired at the end of last November, and that it had then run without a licence before being granted an interim licence in midFebruary.
In March the then transport manager had been replaced for three months by Archer who had not been qualified, which was why Douch had now taken over.
Hobby said the convictions had arisen in a period when the company had not been properly run, and admitted that untaxed vehicles had been run in the beginning to get money in quickly.
Saying that the company was not fit to have a licence, Arnold-Baker held that neither the company nor Douch were of good repute.