Cardiff operator used vehicles with no 0-lic
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Phillip Escott (P. Escott Fuels)
MA Cardiff operator who admitted using his vehicles without an operator's licence has been refused an interim licence, pending the hearing of his application for a substantive licence, by South Wales LA Ronald Jackson Phillip Escott, trading as P. Escott Fuels, of 17 Melrose Close, St MeDons, sought a restricted licence for two vehicles and trailers in possession, with two trailers to be acquired.
Questioned by the LA, about convictions he had declared on his application form, Escott admitted that he had only declared a drinking and driving conviction which had led to him being banned from driving for two years. He denied that there were any other convictions.
The LA said that according to the records Escott had been convicted in April 1985 of using a vehicle when a higher rate of duty was required, being ordered to pay fines and back duty totalling £1,083; in June 1985 he had been convicted of two offences of unauthorised use and one of using an untested trailer, using a vehicle when a higher rate of duty was payable and of having a defective tachograph.
Asked whether he was using his vehicles at the moment, Escott said he had been stopped the day before for having no 0-licence. He had to make a living otherwise he would be on the dole. He agreed that he knew that it was illegal.
The LA said that he was not going to grant Escott an interim licence with a record like that; he had blatantly operated without an operator's licence for a long time.
Escott said that lorry driving was all he knew; buying and selling coal was all he did. He could not afford to hire-in other people to do his work for him.
After the LA warned Escott that the sooner he put the vehicles away and stopped using them the better, Escott said that he could not It was his living and he had to keep working. If he kept getting stopped and kept getting fined then that was what was going to have to be done.
The LA said that the magistrates would only fine Escott up to the limit and the next thing they would do would be to put him inside. Escott could not go on flouting the law.
Escott replied that he would not continue to operate. He would have to think of something else -some other method of buying his coal.
MA driver dismissed by Bees Transport Ltd for gross misconduct, after his vehicle was seen with the tail-gate unlocked, has succeeded in his claim that his dismissal was unfair, before a Leicester Industrial Tribunal. The Tribunal has adjourned the question of remedy until a date to be fixed.
The Tribunal was told that LW. Jarvis had been employed as a delivery driver. He was seen driving his lorry in Leicester with the tail-gate unlocked in breach of the company's regulations, That evening he was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct.
Concluding that the dismissal was unfair, the Tribunal said that Jarvis had been given no real opportunity to explain why the tail-gate was unlocked and he had been unable to present his explanation fully to his manager. The company's response to the facts as reported to it was unreasonable: The company had failed to take adequate account, or take account at all, of Jarvis's length of service, the fact that he had not been the subject of any disciplinary action in the past, and the fact that his lorry was elderly and might have had a difficult, if not defective, tail-gate.
• Two "juggernauts" were used by the police to trap a speeding van along a busy motorway, according to reports in the Daily Post and the Yorkshire Post on June 26.
"The lorries, commandeered by the police, caught up with the speeding van and drove alongside it in the 26-mile chase on the M4.
"With horns blaring and lights flashing, the lorries drove eigher side (sic) of the Mercedes van along the London-bound carriageway until the van driver lost his nerve and skidded to a halt," said the Daily Post.
Answering claims that innocent motorists' lives might have been put at risk, a police spokesman said: "What's more risky.., allowing a vehicle to career down a motorway or attempting to stop it?"
Police cars, which had been unable to stop the van, were travelling in front and behind.
The incident began when a police car from the Avon and Somerset force tried to stop the van at Almondsbury. The lorries with their civilian drivers at the wheels were used after police asked the owners for help.
The van was finally stopped near Swindon. Police said a man would appear in court at a later date to face serious motoring charges.