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Kudos-seeker turns back the clock
Page 31
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A ROCHDALE driver who fiddled his tachograph charts to gain respect as an efficient delivery driver has been given a 100-hour community punishment order at Bolton Crown Court and ordered to pay £450 costs.
Anthony Bennett had previously appeared before the Rochdale Magistrates to admit 25 offences of falsification.They committed him to the crown court for sentence because they considered that their powers of punishment were insufficient.
Prosecuting for VOSA, Janet Roscoe said Bennett had been employed by Premier Pine of Oldham to drive a 7.5-tonne rigid. His usual method of falsification had been to wind the clock back and thus compress the driving time into a shorter scale. On one occasion the chart had been
removed from the tachograph, leaving no trace of the driving that was undertaken.
When interviewed, Bennett had said that he had wound the clock back on long journeys so it appeared that he had left at 8am when he had in fact left at 6am in order to miss traffic. Roscoe agreed there was no evidence that he had exceeded the hours' limits.
Judge William Morris said the basis of Bennett's plea of mitigation was that he had falsified his charts to avoid the stress of driving in heavy traffic rather than to conceal excessive hours. He had done nothing to endanger other road users.
For Bennett, Rachel Stenton said that there had been no financial gain but Bennett had gained "kudos" for apparently getting his deliveries done quickly.