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Year ban for tad') fiddler
Page 31
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A TC has described the story of thefts of tachograph charts from an operator's car as "improbable" — particularly as both the alleged thefts
followed requests to produce the charts. Mike Jewell reports.
AN OPERATOR WHO claimed that missing tachOgraph charts hadbcen stolen from his car on two separate occasions has had his international licence revoked and been disqualified from holding a licence for a year. West Midland Traffic Commissioner David Dixon described the coincidence as "improbable", The TC also suspended Smethwick-based Allan Berrow's LGV driving licence for three months after evidence of tachograph fiddling was produced at the inquiry.
The TC heard that when a traffic examiner asked for his tachograph charts in July 2003, Berrow said they had been in a briefcase stolen from his car. Traffic examiner Marion Wilson said that in August 2005 she asked for charts and Ben-ow gave her the same story.
Analysis of a small number of charts produced at the roadside in August 2005 led to 12 convictions, including one for falsification.
In August 2006 Wilson obtained 58 of Berrow's tachograph charts. By comparing them with police sightings of the vehicle on motorways and records of passages on ferries, she identified 13 occasions on which there was no record of movements recorded by the police. or when the chart placed the vehicle elsewhere. There were also minor hours offences Wilson believed that in 2005 and 2006 the tachograph recordings had been interfered with, possibly by a device on the vehicle.
Berrow denied there was any such device but agreed that he might have not replaced defective fuses as soon as he should have, The hours offences were caused by the difficulty in finding suitable parking with his refrigerated trailer — its engine had to remain on, making it noisy, There was pressure from customers if he was delayed at ports.
TheTC said that to have two briefcases stolen, each containing a large number of tachograph charts, was improbable — particularly when both alleged thefts happened in the short period between a request to produce charts and the date for handing them over. The absence of charts for a number of movements independently recorded by the police was almost certainly the result of deliberate interference with the recording equipment by Berrow, he added.
The TC added that any licence bolder exceeding the hours rules and seeking to hide the fact, no doubt in an effort to maximise income while pretending to be complying with the law, compromised road safety and forfeited their good repute.
A few months after Berrow was convicted — and was thus aware of the need Lobe scrupulous in respecting the law — he was again falsifying records.TheTC concluded there was no excuse for that — nor for, as was probable, claiming Falsely that charts had been stolen a second time, assuming that the first theft did take place. •