News

The Transport Tribunal has ordered that a new Traffic Commissioner reconsider the action taken against Katharine Oliver, the wife of disgraced haulier Stuart Oliver, and her mother Elsie Swan, partners in Hexham-based JW Swan & Partners. It upheld their appeals against their indefinite disqualification from holding an O-licence by North Eastern Deputy Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell and ruled that she should not have conducted the public inquiry as she was a potential witness against the  women.

Howevever, the Tribunal upheld the DTC's decision to revoke the partnership licence for two vehicles and two trailers. She concluded that it had been used for the sole purpose of allowing vehicles that were previously operated by William Martin Oliver & Partners to continue operation. Stuart Oliver was one of two partners in William Martin Oliver & Partners given prison sentences for conspiracy to falsify tachograph records.

Days after the revocation of Katherine Oliver's O-licence, the DTC spotted a tanker belonging to Kilfrost on the M6. She subsequently asked Vosa to investigate since the company was one of JW Swan's main customers. It transpired that the registered keeper of the vehicle was the Swan partnership and was insured by the Swan partnership. The vehicle was on a finance agreement with Stuart Oliver.

In upholding the decision to revoke the licence, the Tribunal said it was satisfied that it was justified and proportionate. It pointed  out that the partnership had persistently used an unauthorised operating centre at Bardon Mill, the former operating centre of William Oliver & Partners, and had persistently operated without a qualified transport manager.

Quashing the disqualification orders, the Tribunal said that because of what the DTC had reported, she became a potential witness. She was also the initiator of the Vosa investigation that led to the public inquiry. Bell was fully entitled to initiate action as a result of the knowledge she had acquired. However, having done so, her position as a potential witness meant she had no option other than to distance herself from the investigation, the preparation for the public inquiry and from conducting the public inquiry itself.

There was a real possibility that Katharine Oliver would apply for a new licence. In the Tribunal's view, it was essential in the interests of justice that any new application be heard by a different TC. In particular, it would be appropriate for a different TC to make a fresh assessment of Katharine Oliver's repute. If there was to be an application for a fresh licence, that application should ideally be heard at the same time as the disqualification hearing.

The Tribunal believed the public inquiry had been fatally flawed by the fact that the DTC was a potential witness and the instigator of the Vosa investigation.