News

The two-vehicle licence held by Neils of Whitby has been revoked and the firm's partners Alan Charman and John Saw disqualified from holding an O-licence for six months by the North Eastern Traffic Commissioner Tom Macartney. Charman was also stripped of his repute as transport manager. The TC announced his decision in writing after considering evidence at a public inquiry.

In making the orders, the TC said the firm had knowingly used a vehicle in an unsafe and dangerous condition and without  a valid test certificate, had carried out more than one international journey without being licensed to perform international work, and had attempted to deceive him about the identity of the licence holder carrying out the international work.

The TC had been told that only two inspection records were available for the last 15 months and that one vehicle had required six attempts to pass the annual test. An examination of tachograph charts revealed an unrecorded distance of 262km for one vehicle and 507km for the other. The test certificate of one vehicle had expired in April 2006 and was not renewed until September. It was frequently used during that period, travelling as far as Ireland and Brussels, even though the licence was a national one. Charman had twice exceeded the daily driving limit and had driven for more than 4.5 hours without the required break. There were also instances of centre field discrepancies.

Charman claimed the jobs abroad had been carried  out as a subcontractor for Stephens Haulage of Luton, which had put the Neils of Whitby vehicle on its international licence. Stephens Haulage had not been aware that the vehicle did not have a valid test certificate because Charman had not told it. Charman agreed that the licence had been granted to a partnership in February 2003 but had been operating as a limited company since March 2004. He also agreed that no accounts had ever been filed at Companies House and that there was a proposal to strike the company off.

Concluding that Charman had also lost his repute as a transport manager, the TC said the claim that a vehicle had been used on an international journey through France and Belgium in August 2006 while specified on another operator's licence was the subject of an investigation immediately after the public inquiry. That revealed that the vehicle had been specified on the Stephens Haulage licence from 29 September 1998 until 2 March 2005. It was never specified on that licence during 2006.

Since the licence was granted the firm's track record was one of the worst the TC had witnessed for an operator employing a professional transport manager.