Six hit for tad° offences
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• Albert Graham, managing director of Anglo Freight bus company, and five of his drivers have been ordered to pay fines and costs totalling over £6,750 for tachograph chart falsification offences.
Four of the drivers had previously admitted falsifying charts and a fifth was convicted. Appearing before the Rawtenstall magistrates, Graham initially denied aiding and abetting the drivers, but subsequently admitted four specimen offences (CM 8-14 September).
Defending, John Backhouse said that Graham had worked hard to build the company up since its formation in 1986. He had previously worked for TNT, as a sales manager, and had not known a great deal about the drivers' hours regulations. The drivers taken on had all been long-term unemployed and had been relatively inexperienced in the use of tachographs. Working 16 hours a day, Graham had allowed matters to slip. Since this case had arisen, an eagle eye had been kept on the situation and the tachograph charts were now sent out for independent analysis.
Graham was fined 13,000, and ordered to pay £1,064.85 costs. The drivers, Brian Wilson (10 offences), Steven Whittaker (10 offences), Andrew Tillotson (seven offences), Glynn Elsworth (eight offences), and Robert Hartley (three offences) were each fined £250 on each of two specimen offences and given conditional discharges for two years in respect of the remainder. Wilson and Whittaker were each ordered to pay 250 costs; Tillotson and Elsworth 240 each; Hartley £15.