Driver wanted security Francis Woods, of Dovecot, pleaded guilty to
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two offences of falsification and one of exceeding the daily driving limit.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, John Heaton said the offences were noticed in a routine check on the tachograph records of Bootle haulier Teresa Postlethwaite, trading as TP Transport.
Discrepancies in the speed traces, missing mileage and the difference in the distance trace between the two charts concerned, led a traffic examiner to believe Woods had carried on driving without a chart in the tachograph to disguise his true driving time. He could not have finished at the Knutsford Services as he had said and he also could not have started at Knutsford the next day.
The traffic examiner also calculated that Woods had driven for 10 hours 36 minutes. Woods had been driving a 38-tonne artic, said Heaton. Road safety was the main reason behind the regulations, which were aimed at preventing tired drivers being behind the wheel of heavy vehicles.
Woods had telephoned the office to say he had been having problems in making time. He was told to press on and he stopped at Knutsford and rang again.
His employer had been very clever, claimed Minard, in that Woods was not directly instructed to return to base but he was advised that the vehicle ought to be in a secure compound.
Woods had therefore driven on to the Lymm Services where there was secure parking Strictly speaking it was not the driver's problem if the load was stolen but because he was a conscientious employee, Woods had got himself into trouble, said Minard. He had been "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea".
He was a conscientious employee who had been prevailed upon to drive on when he should not have done.
Fining Woods, the magistrates said they had taken account of the mitigating circumstances, but these were serious matters.