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Tub fiddler receives suspended sentence and eledronic tag
Page 37
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A TACHOGRAPH FIDDLER has been given a suspended jail sentence by Liverpool Crown Court.
Newton-le-Willows truck driver Geoffrey Bell was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, suspended for 12 months. The suspension of the prison sentence was conditional on no further offending, on Bell keeping in touch with the Probation Service and on him living at his home address and being electronically tagged for six months. Bell was also ordered to pay costs of £250.
Bell had been sent to the Crown Court for sentence because Liverpool magistrates considered their powers of punishment to be insufficient after he pleaded guilty to eight offences of falsification.
Prosecuting for Vosa, Toby Sasse said Bell was employed by Warrington-based M&K Green. Last November traffic examiner Martin Faulkner checked a 25-tonne rigid driven by Bell at the South Mimms Service Area.
An examination of Bell's tachograph charts showed that several had apparent discrepancies between the start and finish odometer readings entered on the centrefield of the charts when compared with the distance trace recordings. There were other offences of excess daily driving and failures to take legal daily and weekly rest periods. Bell admitted trying to conceal inadequate rest breaks in order to do more work in the day.
Offences of falsification were committed on eight out of 19 days and there was a missing distance of 25107km per offence. An aggravating feature was the frequency and systematic pattern of offending over the short period under scrutiny. All eight offences involved driving, not merely other work, bringing a potentially tired driver into contact with other road users.
For Bell, Mark Stewart said the offences had not been committed for personal gain. Bell had been working at positioning himself so as not to have to queue for loads so that he would get home more often to look after his disabled partner.