Booker discharged over lost wheels • An Essex food distribution
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firm has won an absolute discharge after pleading guilty to using a truck in a dangerous condition following a wheel-loss incident.
Last week driver Debra Clubb and her employer, Chelmsford-based Booker Wholesale Foods, appeared before Stowmarket magistrates to explain that, despite the incident, the company examined its vehicles every six weeks.
The court heard that two wheels had come away from Clubb's 7.5-tonne Iveco Cargo and shot across the carriageway as she drove along the A14 last December. Both wheels fell harmlessly by the side of the road.
Clubb, who has since been made redundant, had worked as a driver for 21 years. Following the incident she pulled over and called the police. She told the court that on the morning of the accident she had carried out a routine check of the vehicle—a job the prosecution alleged she had not done properly.
But in giving the firm and Clubb absolute discharges, magistrate Ann Woodward said she had considered the firm's maintenance arrangements and found them to be in order.