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'Everybody's doing it' is no excuse
Page 35
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A MITC11AM, LONDON driver has been given a 155-hour Community Punishment Order and ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £975 for drivers' hours and tachograph offences.
Judge Openheimer at Kingston Crown Court said that these were serious road safety offences and that the defendant's excuse that "everybody was doing it" was ridiculous.
Stephen Paxton pleaded guilty at Kingston to 13 offences. These included making false tachograph records, eight offences of exceeding 4.5 hours of driving without taking the required break, and one offence of failing to take sufficient weekly rest. Wimbledon Magistrates committed him to the crown court for sentence after deciding their powers were insufficient.
Gary Grimshaw, prosecuting for Vosa, told the court that during a national Vosa investigation, known as Operation Octopus, traffic examiner Malcolm Wishart was asked to check tachograph records of drivers employed by Killoughery Construction of Mitcham. This inspection revealed that Paxton had made 13 false records. He completed the centre field details by putting in the name of his brother David to hide the fact that he had committed drivers' hours offences.
For making false records. Paxton was given a Community Punishment Order of 155 hours of unpaid work. He was fined £75 on each of nine drivers' hours offences and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £300.