Amber licence curtailed
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• A failure to disclose pending prosecutions, when Stokeon-Trent-based Amber was granted a licence in May, has led to the duration of its licence being cut at disciplinary proceedings in Birmingham.
In May the company had been granted a new national licence, authorising the opera tion of 10 vehicles for a full five years, by the then Deputy Licensing Authority, the late Ronald Jackson. Assurances had been given that, apart from some maintenance difficulties which had been overcome, there had been no operational problems.
Subsequently, the company and its directors, Peter Gordon and Patrick Mangam, were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling 24,175 by the Fenton Magistrates, after they admitted 35 drivers' hours and tachograph offences and 19 offences of using vehicles without an operator's licence. (CM 2329 June.)
For the company, Michael Carless said the directors had originally been in the building trade and the offences had been committed while they were still very "green" in relation to haulage. The pending prosecutions had not been disclosed in May because, as they were Traffic Area prosecutions, it had been assumed the DLA would be aware of them.
West Midland Licensing Authority John Mervyn Pugh pointed out that some doubt had been cast on the company's financial standing, because it had asked the magistrates for time to pay on grounds of hardship.
Carless said that the company and its directors had not been represented. They had gone to court and admitted the offences, expecting lenient treatment, but had been aggrieved about the size of the penalty, which was why they had asked for time to pay. The company was financially sound and had an overdraft facility of 220,000.
Peter Gordon said that when they had established the company in 1987 they had not fully understood the drivers' hours and tachograph rules. Since the grant of the licence, they had attended one of the Traffic Area's new operators' seminars.
Mervyn Pugh prematurely terminated the licence so that it now expires in April 1991. He said that his decision might have been very different if the offences had been committed after the directors had attended the seminar, and not before.