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An elusive operator with a string of licence offences to his name had his licence revoked when he failed to put in an appearance at an Edinburgh public inquiry before Scottish Traffic Commissioner Joan Aitken. The TC said a traffic examiner had reported that he had had difficulty in contacting Leven-based David Grubb who held a one-vehicle restricted licence. Grubb had repeatedly failed to attend appointments.

There had been a change of legal entity to a limited company which had  not been notified to the Traffic Area Office no replacement licence had been applied for. The operating centre was Burnside Industrial Area, Kinglassie, but the vehicle had been kept at Grubb's home in a communal parking area intended for residential use.

The sole vehicle on the licence was involved in a collision on 4 December 2006. When the police attended it was found that the driver did not hold a driving licence - he had held only a provisional licence prior to a three-year disqualification for drink-driving in April 2002. Grubb was told to produce tachograph charts some were found to be missing and the 19 charts that were produced revealed numerous infringements.

On 19 February 2007 a Ford Transit van was found to be overloaded and was prohibited. The driver, the brother of the driver involved in the 4 December incident, had never held a driving licence. On 27 February 2007 the same van, driven by Grubb, was found to be overloaded and was prohibited. The TC said  there were clear breaches of the licence conditions. Grubb had also failed to show that he continued to have the financial resources necessary for a restricted operation of this size. His behaviour in not coming to the public inquiry was consistent with his pattern of failing to meet the traffic examiner.

Though Grubb had said he was ill and was going to give up his vehicle, in view of the list of breaches of licence conditions and the change of entity the TC felt it was proportionate to revoke the licence.