• One of 13 truck drivers prosecuted for drivers hours
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and tachograph offences has complained that no action was taken against a former transport boss alleged to have forced them to break the law.
Robert Slater of Clarendon Drive, Western Downe, Stafford, who worked for Swains of Stretton, was prosecuted with 12 Other drivers for the offences in August 1987.
He appeared at a public inquiry in Birmingham at which West Midland licensing authority John Mervyn Pugh was considering taking disciplinary action against his HGV driving licence.
Slater argued he had been heavily fined for failing to take sufficient weekly rest, and said that under the circumstances he would have thought that the fine would have been sufficient.
Mervyn Pugh said that he looked on such offences much more seriously than did magistrates. Slater wanted to know why the person he maintained was the instigator of the offences was not before the Licensing Authority over his CPC. He agreed that he had a chip on his shoulder but claimed that all the drivers at Swains had been involved.
Mervyn Pugh commented that he had already had Swains before him at disciplinary proceedings. Slater, however, said that the instigator had not been before the LA. He alleged that it had been transport manager Ivan Richards, who was now with Cadwalladers, and that he was "laughing all the way to the bank". Slater also alleged that the drivers had been told that if they did not do it they would be "down the road" and that Richards had told them to break the law or be sacked.
It had gone on more than enough times and a driver had had no choice when he had a mortgage. It was not the drivers who needed pulling up but the comedians "who forced them to break the law," said Slater. It had been a regular occurrence, not just at Swains, and nothing had been done to stop it,