Did Not Know He Was Partner'
Page 49
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AFTER hearing how an applicant had for fourteen years represented that he was working in partnership with another man, and had forged his " partner's " signature on application forms, the Metropolitan Licensing Authority, Mr. D. I. R. Muir, adjourned a hearing so that legal advice could be taken.
Mr. A. W. Peat, of Upminster, Essex, who was applying for the continuation of an A licence with substituted vehicles —the application being annotated to the effect that a Mr. J. H. Roberts was no longer a partner-said that during the 1950s he had obtained the business and vehicles of Roberts; he understood that Roberts intended to go to South Africa. From then onwards he had carried on the business "in a normal sort of way ".
He admitted to the LA that he had not seen Roberts for 14 years. There never was a partnership—he and his brother had run the business, the vehicles of which had been disposed of last July. He had made several attempts to find Roberts at a Lea Bridge address.
Giving evidence, Roberts, of South Woodford, said that Peat could not have tried very hard to find him as his parents still lived at the address that Peat had mentioned. He agreed that he let Peat have the business and licence for £75 and had not bothered to renew the licence. "1 just let it run out", he said, adding that it was a mystery to him that he was a senior partner in an A-licensed firm.
The LA put it to Roberts: "Are you asking me to refuse this application so that another one can be put in?" Roberts said he had been advised that the best thing would be to get the case delayed.