Dean breached condition after public inquiry
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Christopher John Dean (Dean Haulage)
• In 1985, Christopher John Dean, who trades as Dean Haulage, was granted a standard operator's licence due to expire in 1990 for two vehicles and two trailers by the North Eastern Licensing Authority.
Dean changed his operating centre without applying to vary his licence. When he belatedly applied for the requisite variation, it attracted strong opposition from representors living nearby. The Deputy LA decided to call a public inquiry under Section 69 of the Transport Act 1968.
At the end of that inquiry the DLA suspended the licence for one month until the 21 February 1988 and imposed a condition that "save in an emergency to be notified to the Licencing Authority in writing (including particulars of the emergency) within three days, vehicles authorised under the licence may move into and out of the operating centre and may be maintained (including the inflation of tyres) only between the hours of 0800 and 1830 on Monday to Fridays and 0800 to 1300 on Saturdays and there be no such movement or maintenance on Sundays or public holidays."
At the inquiry the operator made it clear t'the condition would cause severe difficulties in carrying out his only contract with ARC Concrete, but the DLA said: "I must make it perfectly clear to you, Mr Dean, that this condition is going to be imposed; it is no use disregarding this as you have disregarded requirements in the past. I have disciplinary powers, as you now know very well, if you fail to comply with these conditions."
The DLA later said. "I have had an opportunity of assessing Mr Dean's general attitude, which seems to me to be one that he does not care, he will do anything he can get away with, he delays in making applications which he well knows should be made."
The operator hired his vehicles to another operator during the month of suspension. The other operator was not bound by the terms of the condition.
As a result of complaints from people living in the vicinity who had given evidence on 21 January 1988, the LA decided to hold a further public inquiry on 15 July 1988.
At that inquiry the operator admitted the breaches of the condition and explained that he would have lost his only contract if he had adhered to the condition. He had not appealed against the condition and had not taken legal advice; but he had: he claimed, consulted an employee of the Department of Transport who checks tachographs who had advised him to try and work something out with ARC and apply for variation of the condition in six months' time if he could not manage to operate within the condition.
In giving his decision, the DLA repeated what he had said on 21 January and concluded "I find that Mr Dean, as I said in January, does have a complete disregard for his duties under the law, and I find that these breaches of conditions, on many occasions, were a flagrant disregard of those conditions, and I direct by way of penalty that his operator's licence be revoked."
Dean appealed from that decision to the Transport Tribunal where his solicitor, TudorEvans, repeated the reasons given by the appellant to the DLA for the deliberate breaches of the condition and submitted that the DLA erred in law in not considering the less drastic remedies open to him under Section 69.
"There was no substance in those submissions," says the Tribunal, in a written judgment. "We have no doubt that the Deputy Licensing Authority decided that no other order was appropriate. We agree with him and would only add that the appellant was very fortunate that the Deputy Licensing Authority made no order under Section 69(5) of the Transport Act 1968.
"At the close of the hearing we therefore directed that this appeal should be dismissed, but that our order should not take effect until midnight on 7 October 1988."