P&W loses ban case
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• A haulier has been fined £400 with £200 costs for breaking London's night time lorry ban, despite a bid to escape on a technicality.
Pinn & Wheeler of Barking in Essex pleaded not guilty at Barking Magistrates Court to four charges of driving trucks weighing over 16.5 tonnes on prohibited streets, claiming that it, as a company, could not have actually driven the trucks.
The decision, on Tuesday of this week, could have set an important precedent for later cases and cast into doubt the wording of the London Boroughs Transport Schemes lorry ban order.
For the prosecution, Robin Allen said that the company operated through its agents, its drivers. The order applied to the company as well as to the individual, and the company was responsible.
Allen, however, was extending the definition of vicarious liability and attempting to get round an "error in the drafting of the ban", said Jeremy Fear, defending.
For a person to drive a vehicle he had to be physically at the wheel or physically controlling the person at the wheel, he said.
The magistrates found the company guilty. In mitigation Fear said the company had made it abundantly clear to drivers that they should not use restricted roads. It had applied for and obtained a permit. There was no culpability and no negligence, he said. El London Boroughs Transport Committee chairman Peter Broadbent said after the decision that the courts were sending out a clear signal to hauliers that the ban is a serious law, implemented to ensure a better environment.