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Oakley hit by LA

28th May 1983, Page 16
28th May 1983
Page 16
Page 16, 28th May 1983 — Oakley hit by LA
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

FIVE VEHICLES were taken off the licence held by Hereford haulier Arthur Oakley Transport by West Midland Licensing Authority Ronald Jackson after drivers' hours and records convictions.

The licence, which authorised 25 vehicles and 39 trailers, was also prematurely terminated so it expires at the end of October.

The company and 14 of its drivers were convicted of a series of offences involving excessive hours and the falsification of tachograph records, and paid fines and costs of e5,670 (CM, March 5).

Trevor Oakley, the company's managing director, said tachographs were first used by the company in January 1981 and he did not become managing director until February 1981. He had not got on well with his father who had been in control until his death the previous year.

He did not believe the implications of using tachographs had been thought through at the time they were implemented. No additional administrative staff had been taken on and none of the charts for the first three months of operation when the offences had occurred had been checked before they were seized by traffic examiners.

One reason for the offences was a massive fuel fiddle which some drivers had been involved in. Drivers had been taking their charts out after reporting they had parked up, then driven to Cirencester where they signed for fuel they never received, and then slipped into Hereford in the early hours to fill up before continuing their journey. When they put the charts back in the tachographs they tried to match up the traces.

Mr Oakley said he was very bitter that the company had spent £15,000 defending the drivers for it was not aware at that stage that they had been fiddling the company. Though the company was a member of the Road Haulage Association legal aid scheme, the RHA had not supported the defence on the grounds it was too expensive.

The company had been charged with aiding, abetting and permitting and apart from the cost, customers had been asking for two years whether it was going to lose its licence.

Mr Oakley said he believed eight drivers had been involved in the fuel fiddle but agreed that only two of them had been involved in the Hereford cases. He said the fuel pumps were now linked to a computer and the fuel consumption of each vehicle was worked out. That had not been previously done on a regular basis. He agreed that the company had received two warning letters in 1981.

For the company, Michael Carless said it had admitted the offences as it had been negligent. There was now a different regime and the company's house had been put in order.

Announcing his decision Mr Jackson said a feud in a family business could not be accepted as an excuse for incompetence. If the company had used the tachographs as the tool it undoubtedly was, it would have no doubt discovered the fuel fiddle.

After Marion Oakley, Trevor's wife, had withdrawn an application in her own name for a new licence for 25 vehicles and 39 trailers, Mr Jackson commented that it was perhaps as well as it saved him having to refuse it.


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