Cleared on weight offences
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• Keighley-based Watkinson Lifting and Transportation and one of its drivers have been cleared of alleged overweight and width offences involving a vehicle moving under the Special Types Order.
The company and driver Charles Mallinson denied exceeding the permitted train weight and permitted width of the artic when they appeared before Teesside magistrates.
Police motorcycle officer Raymond Wilson said that on 30 May he arrived at a layby on the A66 to escort an abnormal load. The outfit was carrying a large cable drum and there were two pieces of metal framework at the rear of the trailer. In PC Wilson's opinion it was not an abnormal and indivisible load. He directed the outfit to ICI at Wilton where it was split-weighed due to its size and the train weight was 59,200kg. He and the driver mea
sured the width of the drum at 5.04m: the vehicle did not comply with its notice of movement.
Wilson agreed with Jonathan Lawton, defending, that the outfit had been escorted by five separate police forces before it arrived in Cleveland, and he accepted that they must have taken the view that it was an abnormal and indivisible load, and that the metal frames comprising the saddle on which the drum rested formed part of the load.
He said he did not know whether the weighbridge at ICI Wilton had been tested for split weighing. He was not familiar with the definition of width con tamed in the Construction & Use Regulations.
Pointing out that no senior person of the company had been interviewed by the police, Lawton said that there was no evidence before the court to establish whether the vehicle belonged to the company or that Mallinson was an employee.
He argued that the evidence in relation to both weight and width could not be accepted as it was clearly flawed.
The magistrates directed that the defence costs be met out of public funds.