Driver fined for 'sophisticated' tachograph falsifications
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A NORTH WALES truck driver must pay fines and costs totalling £3,200 for falsifying tachograph records while working for Dundalk-based PortwayTrailers.
Bleddyn Wyn Dorkins, of Sibrwd-Y-Mor, 24 LIwnngwalch, Lou Penrhos, Mona Nefyn, Pwllheli, pleaded guilty to three offences of falsification when he appeared before the Birkenhead Magistrates.
Prosecuting for VOSA, John Heaton said the offences came blight when Dorkins' artic was stopped in an organised check at Dalar Hir, on the Isle of AngleseyThey were sophisticated falsifications. On at least one of the charts the tachograph head had been opened, but the full scale deflection that would have resulted had been concealed, probably by the use of a "sacrificial" chart.
The charts had been falsified to conceal excessive driving and insufficient rest. In particular Dorkins had hidden a journey from North Wales to Birkenhead and then down to Southampton, a journey of around 500km, As the chart was false and the fuse had been removed, it was impossible to say how much driving had been done. However, the chart recorded 506km plus in the region of another 500km.
Dorkins' daily rest was likely to have been in the region of only three hours immediately followed by a full day's work in a 38-tonne attic.
Traffic examiner Geoffrey Whitley had been able to reconstruct the journeys because of his knowledge of the speed trace profile for certain routes and by being able to place the vehicle at certain locations during the course of the day by reference to documentation from Norse Merchant Ferries, For Dorkins, Louise McCloskey said not all the charts for that week's work were false. It was accepted he had been trying to do too much work, which was a problem in the industry The magistrates fined Dorkins £1,000 per offence with £200 costs.