Court quashes overloading fine
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• A Lancashire haulage company has succeeded in having a fine quashed for an overloading offence. Bristol Crown Court accepted that there was no way that Wilfred Holden (Blackburn) could have known that the driver had been at fault.
Avon North Magistrates had fined the company £625 for exceeding the permitted train weight of a 38-tonne artic.
For the Vehicle Inspectorate, David Maunder said that when check-weighed the artic, which had been carrying reels of paper between Oxford and Bristol, had had a train weight of 39,650kg, an overload of 4.3%.
For Holden, John Backhouse said the company could not have known that the driver had been at fault in collecting the heavier of two trailers, and thereby accidentally exceeding the permitted train weight.
Producing weight tickets showing the weights of the two tractor units sent to collect two trailers from the same customer, Backhouse said that there was a difference in unladen weight of 1.100kg between the two tractors. The heavier tractor should have picked up the lighter trailer and vice versa.
Backhouse argued that in the case of Hart v Bex, the High
Court had ruled that if a defendant was morally blameless for an offence of absolute liability and had not been negligent, a discharge was appropriate.
Judge Boothman quashed the fine and substituted a conditional discharge for six months.