Crown Court cuts hours fine in half
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• Fines totalling £14,500 imposed on London Rearers of Wix in Essex for permitting drivers hours offences, have been halved on appeal to Wolverhampton Crown Court.
in July the company pleaded guilty before West Bromwich magistrates to permitting driver Andrew Welch to take insufficient weekly rest on 20 occasions, to exceed the daily driving limit three times, to exceed 4i hours driving without the required break three times, to fail to keep a record twice and to take insufficient daily rest once. It was fined £500 for each offence. For the company, Philip Capon argued that the fines were excessive. He said that if the amount of rest taken by Welch in a week was totalled up, he had taken more than was required by law. The problem was that he had not taken it in the right consecutive amounts. There was no suggestion that Welch had exceeded 90 hours driving in a fortnight.
Reducing the fines to £250 per offence, a total of £7,250, Judge Pyke said that the magistrates could not be criticised for sentencing in the way that they had. The company ought to have appeared to put forward its mitigation, rather than submitting a guilty plea by post.