Banned till 2000 over false tachos
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• Mounthooly Transport of Jedburgh has lost its licence after being convicted of falsifying tachograph records. The company and its directors, John Davidson and his mother Edith. have also been disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence until 20 February 2000.
The company, which held a licence for five vehicles and eight trailers, must cease operations from midnight July 12 following the ruling by Scottish Traffic Commissioner Michael Betts.
In April 1994 the company was fined £200 for failing to produce tachograph records. In February 1995 Davidson was convicted at Portsmouth Crown Court of five charges of aiding and abetting drivers to make false records, contrary to the Forgery Act, and of seven charges of aiding and abetting drivers to make false entries in tachograph records.
He was sentenced to nine months in jail, suspended for two years, and fined £10,000. Four drivers were convicted of falsifying tachograph charts and were fined a total of .C2,400. None of the Portsmouth Crown Court convictions had been notified to the Traffic Area.
For the company, Alistair Mackie said that the missing tachograph charts had been inadvertently thrown out. The offences which had led to the Portsmouth convictions had occurred in the first half of 1991, during the height of the recession, he added.
Mackie said that the company as such had not been convicted and it had been advised by its English solicitor that it did not need to report the convictions to the Traffic Commissioner.
Mackie stressed that since the proceedings, the company had made considerable improvements in its control system.
Betts said he had been told that Davidson had not been a director at the time of the 1991 offences. However, inquiries showed that he became a director in December 1990.
It was quite clear that the Portsmouth convictions resulted from a massive attempt at deception, said Betts. He added that the tachograph charts for November 1993 had been requested and it seemed highly probable that their non-availability was more than just an unfortunate mistake.
He also wondered why it had been necessary to lie about Mr Davidson's appointment as a director. He could only conclude that there was a continuing intention to deceive.
Betts said that the seriousness of the convictions, and the web of deceit, left him with no alternative but to disqualify the company and its directors.