Overloading charrs thrown out fnr kirk of o bridge check
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Overloading charges brought against Blackburn lorry driver Paul Charnley have been thrown out by the town's magistrates.
Charnley had denied exceeding the permitted second axle and gross weights of a tipper he had been driving on behalf of SB Tippers. An allegation that Charnley had used a vehicle with a dangerous load was dropped by the prosecution.
Sergeant John Amos of Lancashire Police said he had stopped the vehicle concerned because it appeared to be overloaded. When the vehicle was check-weighed on a computer-operated static weighbridge at the Walker Industrial Estate, the second axle was found to weigh 52% over that allowed and the permitted gross weight had been exceeded by some 36%. In reply to James Backhouse, defending, Sergeant Amos agreed that vehicles could appear to be overloaded when they were not. He said he had entered the figures on the certificate of weight from those shown on the digital read-out at the weighbridge himself.
Maintaining that the prosecution had failed to make its case, Backhouse said they had a duty to show that the evidence they relied upon, namely the certificate of weight, was accurate. In the absence of the weighbridge operator or any certificates from trading standards officer that the weighbridge had been tested for accuracy, there was no evidence that the weighbridge was accurate or that its computer was working properly.
I here was no evidence that the weighbridge was accurate or that its computer was working nrooeriv,