Wright case goes higher
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• Manchester-based J Wright Heavy Haulage is to take its fight against a defective brake prosecution to the High Court after Pontefract magistrates refused to accept that the prosecution is flawed.
The company is charged with five offences, including one of defective brakes that allegedly led to the death of driver Robert Atkinson in June. Atkinson, of Gorton, Manchester, died when his artic plunged 40 feet from the Great North Road into the River Aire at Ferrybridge. The authorities initiated the case after the coroner returned a verdict of unlawful killing.
But last week defence solici
tor Jonathan Lawton argued that the prosecution was defective because it listed all five charges on one summons and failed to state which part of the braking system was faulty.
He said that separate offences would arise depending on whether the defect was in the tractor unit of the semitrailer.
But after failing to convince magistrates Lawton successfully pleaded that the case should be tried in the High Court, where he could call expert witnesses to defend each of the alleged offences.
The proceedings were adjourned until a date for the trial could be fixed.