Drivers' overnight' trips led to court
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• Three drivers employed by Thomson (Bradford) Transport Ltd, who had used the tractive units of their articulated vehicles to return home after finishing work, were fined for hours and records offences by the Bradford, Yorkshire, magistrates last week.
Peter Connor faced one charge of failing to keep a current record and one of exceeding 11 hours duty in a working day; David Albert Turner, one charge of failing to keep current records; and Stanley Rhodes, one charge of failing to keep current records and two charges of working in excess of 11 hours. Connor and Turner pleaded not guilty and Rhodes guilty.
Thomson (Bradford) Transport also faced two charges that the company did not enter the driver's record book serial number on each of the sheets of a book issued to Turner. The company pleaded guilty.
Mr R. Hewitt, a DoE traffic examiner, said Connor's vehicle was seen in the Bradford area at 5.05 am on June 24 but his record for that date showed he had commenced work in Liverpool at 6 am. He had ceased work the previous day at 6 pm at Liverpool, consequently he had had less than 10-i hours rest.
Turner's records showed he ended work at Liverpool on June 24 at 6 pm and commenced work at Liverpool at 7 am _on-June 25. In fact, his vehicle was cheated in the Bradford area at 7.30 pm on June 24 and 6.08 am on June 25.
Mr Connor said he had not driven over his hours because he had in fact started home with his tractive unit, leaving the loaded trailer in Liverpool, at 3 pm arriving home at 6 pm.
The following day he had left Bradford at 6 am arriving in Liverpool at 8 am.
Mr Turner said he had come home in his tractive unit after booking off in Liverpool. He was paid on his driver's record, so he had thought that to come home in the tractor would count as "pleasure" and not have to go on the record or count against his hours.
Both Connor and Turner said they had not been paid subsistence money to stay out overnight.
The magistrates found the cases proved and fined Connor £25 and Turner £10.
The circumstances were similar in the case against Rhodes and he was fined a total of £30.
At the commencement of the cases against the company, Mr R. M. Stuart, defending, said his clients wished to make it clear that they had no knowledge of the offences committed by the drivers and that on each occasion the drivers had been paid _am _ overnight allowance for stopping in Liverpool.
Mr E. Wurzal, prosecuting, said the serial numbers had been omitted on the sheets on Turner's driver's record book on June 23 and 25.
. In mitigation, Mr Stuart said the company had entered the serial number on the front cover of the books, but in order to ease the administrative burden, had left it to the drivers to enter it on each individual sheet. This was a very minor offence out of the many hundreds that could be committed under the new regulations.
Mr Walsh said the magistrates did not accept this was a minor offence. To omit to include these serial numbers negated one of the main purposes of the Act and the magistrates took a serious view of the matter.
The company was fined a total of £20. In his summing up, Judge Morris said when Cryer started in the conspiracy he was in partnership with John Thomasson operating four oil tankers under the name of Swallow Motors. Thomasson was not introduced to the fraud until March 1970 when the name of the firm was changed to Albion Motors but after a difference of opinion the partnership was dissolved and the tankers sold to a man called Ashworth.
Cryer then bought one tanker back and continued to get loads of unmarked oil which he supplied to three other co-defendants, who together operated a firm named T andP Fuels.
At first T and P bought the oil from Cryer believing it had come cheaply from ICI because it was excessive to requirements. However, at a later stage T and P also bought a tanker from Ashworth and were introduced to the conspiracy by Cryer.
Judge's praise After the trial the judge praised Customs men and police. A total of 28 people had been sentenced in courts in the North including 18 who received fines totalling £25,000 for receiving oils on which duties had not been paid.
During the Customs investigation, mobile laboratories were used and thousands of lorries were stopped to test their fuel to see whether it was of the same gravity as that dispensed by the installation.
Dye which should have been used in the loads, he said, had been smuggled out of the plant to avoid an excess of stocks and was emptied into canals, rivers and streams in North Lancashire.