• On a chilly November evening in Leeds, visiting solicitor
Page 36
Page 37
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Ford & Warren's smart, modern offices, one wonders where the greybeards are, as absurdly young men and women bustle to and front reception with postal packets and messages. Instead of the 1.,Travitas of law, the stylish work stations in an openplan setting remind one of a busy sales office.
It is from here that Stephen Kirkbright, a partner specialising in transport law, conducts his gritty battles with the absurdities and complexities of defending hauliers from the UK and European legal system.
"The prime area of law needing refonu", insists Kirkbright, jabbing his finger into the air, "is absolute liability for Construction and Use offences. It's totally against the grain of everything I've been taught as a lawyer — you need to have the act and the guilty intent. If you inadvertently take a packet of cheese from a supermarket you are not guilty, but if someone puts something on your lorry that you did not know about, you are guilty."
Kirkbright sadly admits there are few votes for changing the law on consignor liability. "It would be regarded as environmentally unsound,he says.
Kirkbright nuts for the Road I haulage Association nationally and sawware that it is pressing for change, in particular for a defence of due diligence. "Why should a tipper (Teraina'," asks Kirkbright. "who has had a few extra shovelsful dumped in his lorry on a rainy night be found guilty?"
In the US it is an offence to declare
wrongly the weight of ;1 consignment in British law no specific offence exists. But Kirkbright cites examples where the haulier could not have known he was overloaded.
KIRKBRIGHT:
'It's totally against the grain of everything I've been taught as a lawyer' A frozen-food manufacturer increased a product from 24 to 30 per pack. The production manager did not tell the distribution manager who, of course, was unable to tell the haulier. In another case, a major bottle manufacturer calculated its bottle weights accurately, but a computer redesign changed the bottles' thickness, adding BY4 to the weight.
Sources now believe the Department of Transport is considering prosecuting consignors for aiding and abetting in an overloading offence.
A major task for Kirkbright now is to form a pan-European association of transport lawyers, in order to prevent such injustices as foreign hauliers being locked up until they have hppeared in court and paid a fine.
LOCKED UP
Kirkbright cites a French trucker in Britain locked up overnight and kept in custody until a S:,50 fine was paid, for exceeding the .11.'H-hour driving rule.
British drivers can face die same fate abngid — German police have the power to impose fixed penalty lines if two weeks' wia-th of tacho discs are not available.
A formal arrangement of European transport lawyers would offer drivers the advantages of a single leleph Apart from the difficulties of law interpretation, how are hauliers treated generally by the law enforcement agencies the DTp, the judges and the police? Kirkhright agrees that police forces do not have a vindictive attitude to hauliers, although some have specific concerns. Kent police, for example, have problems with vehicles travelling from ports so are particularly on the lookout for overloading and speeding. However, some police officers can be "wholly unreasonable", says Kirkbright, citing two officers who stopped every sleeper cab for being 0.5m longer than the legal length of 15.0m, although the impossibility of maintaining this law meant that a change was imminent. On the whole. Kirkbright believes judges are well versed on transport law and act judiciously, "they don't think here's a cowboy haulier, and in many cases we secure acquittals on technicalities because the prosecutor falls down on basic things such as establishing who employs the accused driver." MASSES Fore Sz Warren has found • Ill) worse than other clients on paying their legal fees, but Kirkbrioht says "masses" of small operators hay legal insurance scheme. "This is a mu: he insists. And, indeed, the cost of litigation can he very sobering. A had tacho case in volving 300 discs could cost £.10,000 to defend, with the possibility of £20,000 fines imposed. 0 by Patric CunnaneTags