A company whose driver invented an imaginary friend to fiddle tachograph charts has been ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £5,500 by Chelmsford Magistrates. Grays-based Walker Transport Services was ordered to pay the penalties after being fouund guilty of three offences of permitting the falsification of tachograph charts by their former driver Kenneth Bradshaw. Jacqueline Devonish, prosecuting for Vosa, said that operators had a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent contraventions
by drivers.
By not checking the drivers' hours or enquiring about charts handed over in the name of "Joe Page", who was not their driver, the company had failed in its duty. While the company maintained that it regularly sent tachograph charts to an independent analyst, they had not informed the analysts that "Joe Page" was not a driver for the company. Therefore, the analysts would not have been able to identify contraventions. The company was thereby complicit in permitting the false charts by not taking reasonable steps.
Bradshaw had been motivated to drive to earn more. By providing such a financial incentive, Walker Transport was encouraging infringements of the regulations. Bradshaw said he had been pressurised to accept more work than he could reasonably manage. When he complained he was threatened with the loss of his job since the company benefited financially from his wrongdoing. He had admitted completing charts in the name of "Joe Page" to conceal the fact he
was driving when he should have been taking his daily rest. The company was fined £1,000 per offence, and was ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,500. Bradshaw had earlier been fined £2,250, with £250 costs, at Chelmsford Crown Court. (CM 28 February 'Driver with imaginary mate fined £2,500')
The magistrates found Bradshaw to be a credible witness and believed the company knew or should have known he was falsifying charts. However, they did accept there was not a culture of falsification within the company.
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