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Undeclared convictions result in no 0-Licence
Page 24
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The IC refuses a request for an 0-licence because the applicant had not declared his criminal past.
A FORMER DRUG DEALER who drove the getaway car in an armed robbery has lost his bid for an 0-licence.
Wigan-based Thomas Pownall, trading as Quick Skips, had applied for a new two-vehicle restricted licence.
In October 1999, Bolton Crown Court jailed him for 10 years after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin.
In 1982, he had been jailed for seven years for driving a vehicle involved in an armed robbery.
Pownall told North-Western Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell that he had done everything he had been asked to do; he had been released from prison on parole in December 2003.
He was currently operating a light van, but had two larger vehicles he could not use because he did not possess an 0-licence.
He had been assisted in completing the application form by Barbara Prescott, the co-owner of a waste management firm at Bickershaw, and claimed that she had advised him not to declare his convictions.
Asked why the maintenance records showed that the two trucks had covered 2,813km and 842km, Pownall answered that he had been using them to learn to drive HGVs.
He initially denied the trucks had been used for business purposes, but when pressed he did admit that he had operated one of them for a short period of time ('Former getaway driver bids for 0-licence; CM 5 March).
Refusing the application, the IC said that Pownall had a serious criminal record, which he had failed to declare in his application.
He had shown by his actions that he could not be trusted, and if it had not been for the police informing her of the convictions, it was likely that the application would have been granted without close scrutiny and there would then have been an unacceptable risk to road safety and fair competition.
Additionally, Pownall had lied when giving evidence by denying that he was illegally operating vehicles. It was only when the evidence stacked against him was incontrovertible that he had finally owned up.
The TC concluded that this case vividly illustrated the importance of the police being able to object to 0-licence applications, and why they should notify the TCs of any serious convictions recorded against potential 0-licence holders.