Transport Tribunal backs fly-tipper's loss of repute
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• The Transport Tribunal has con firmed the revocation of the licence held by Sprigcourt, trading as Perkins Plant, of Hastings. South Eastern and Metropolitan LA Michael Turner revoked the licence after the company's principle director, Keith Perkins, was convicted of fly-tipping.
In 1991 Lewes Crown Court fined Perkins 1:4,000 for illegally tipping waste in contravention of a stop notice.
Later the same year he was convicted at Maidstone Crown Court of eight offences of knowingly permitting the deposit of controlled waste and eight offences of knowingly permitting the use of plant for that purpose. He was initially fined £200,000 with £12,000 costs; the fine was reduced to ,E50,000 on appeal.
In revoking the licence, Brigadier Turner said that a director who incurred convictions of that sort could not be said to be of good repute. Though the convictions were recorded against Perkins, not the company, he was one of only two directors and was the CPC holder.
In such circumstances, Turner concluded, the company was not of good repute.
Appearing for the company, Jim Duckworth told the tribunal it was wrong to hold that amvicdons incurred by Perkins in his private capacity affected the company's fitness to hold a licence--the law did not require a director to be of good repute.
However the tribunal could find no fault in the LA's findings: it said the LA could well have "pierced the veil of corporate fiction" and found that for all practical purposes the company and Perkins were so closely identified as to be indistinguishable.