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Rea!meal innocent of 44 overloading charges

5th May 1988, Page 39
5th May 1988
Page 39
Page 39, 5th May 1988 — Rea!meal innocent of 44 overloading charges
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• Southampton-based haulier Realmeal and driver Charles Loton escaped 44 charges of overloading last week before the city's magistrates when the prosecution failed to prove that the trucks had ever been taken on to a public road in an overloaded condition.

Trading standards officer John Belton said that, as a result of information received, he had visited the weighbridge at Dibles Wharf in Southampton and obtained a number of weight tickets showing that a vehicle driven by Loton had been substantially overloaded on a number of occasions. Belton understood that the loaded vehicle then went on to the public road to deliver to a fertiliser company a kilometre away.

Belton told the court that he did not believe it was possible for a vehicle to collect a load from the hopper on the wharf, weigh, off-load any excess, proceed to the delivery point, return to the wharf, reload and weigh again, in the average time of 18 minutes between the issue of two weight tickets.

Under questioning from Jonathan Lawton for the defence, Belton admitted that he had never seen the vehicle on the road in an overloaded condition. He had not measured the distance to the delivery point, other than on the map, and had not timed any of the separate operations; also he had never followed and timed a vehicle over the route concerned.

Weighbridge clerk Arthur Bennett said that if a vehicle was overloaded it would be taken to off-load the excess and would return to reweigh.

Bennett agreed that he was unable to ascertain if a vehicle was taken for excess weight to be removed.

Tony Hilton, a director of Realineal, said the company's drivers were instructed not to go on to the road when overloaded. The journey concerned could be done comfortably in the times shown by the weight tickets. If a vehicle was overloaded the driver would reverse back to a point close to the hopper and off-load the excess before continuing.

Loton said that it was his practice to weigh and then offload any excess, relying upon his experience to determine when the load was legal, without reweighing. He denied that he had ever taken an overloaded vehicle on to the road. He said that when a sufficient amount of excess material had accumulated on the wharf it would be loaded into his lorry by grab and he would make a special trip without weighing.

Lawton argued that the prosecution had failed to show that the vehicle had ever been taken on to the public road in an overloaded condition.


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