http://www.truckingmag.co.uk Summer 2019 TRUCKING 75
lack of interest in what was
actually happening.
Without realising it, Mr Jones
became a transport manager in
name only in relation to a business
operated by someone who was
disqualified from doing so. That
was compounded by his failure to
explain to the OTC what had
happened when sending his letter
of resignation.
If Mrs Hyde’s investigation had
not already been under way, the
outcome might well have been
that Mr Isaac found another
transport manager or, having
obtained his own professional
qualification, himself became the
transport manager, and the
commissioner was left wholly
unaware he had ever acted as a
shadow director of CIT.
Those matters seemed to
show a serious failure by
Mr Jones to appreciate the
wide-ranging responsibilities of
a transport manager.
RM Commercials Ltd
LICENCE REVOKED &
DIRECTOR
DISQUALIFIED
The licence for five vehicles
and five trailers held by
Stone-based RM Commercials
Ltd was revoked and its sole
director, Richard Morrin,
disqualified from holding or
obtaining a licence for two years
by traffic commissioner Nick
Denton for failing to comply with
undertakings given at a previous
public inquiry.
December 3, 2018. He said he
had not had further contact to
arrange the date of the audit until
February 25, 2019. He understood
he should have given that greater
priority. He was now serious about
compliance and was determined
not to have to appear at a public
inquiry again. He had now replied
to the Environment Agency’s
request for information.
The commissioner had said at
the previous public inquiry that he
had noted Mr Morrin had told a
vehicle examiner he would be
purchasing a decelerometer brake
testing device, but in the end he
had not done so. The reason Mr
Morrin had given at the inquiry
was he had decided to invest in a
roller brake testing facility instead.
Mr Morrin admitted he had not
done so. Asked whether he had
taken on IRTEC qualified staff, as
he had said at the 2018 inquiry he
was intending to do, he replied he
had not.
The commissioner commented
Mr Morrin had told him at the
2018 inquiry that pending the
purchase of roller brake testing
equipment vehicles were being
given roller brake tests by an
outside provider. However, he
noted from the safety inspection
sheets that vehicles had not
regularly been given a metered
brake test. They were merely
being road tested, with “all good”
the invariable result. He noted only
two rolling brake tests records
over the last 12 months for the
three vehicles currently on the
licence. One in November 2018
had been necessary to clear a
prohibition. That fell far short of
the rosy picture of regular roller
road brake testing which had been
painted for him at the May 2018
public inquiry.In May 2018, the commissioner
suspended the company’s licence
for 28 days and secured its
agreement to have an
independent audit of compliance
carried out by October 31, 2018.
In coming to his decision, he
found the company had used a
vehicle fitted with an AdBlue
emulator and had been without a
transport manager for most of its
life, successive transport
managers having arrived and
departed very quickly being
already on its fourth transport
manager in two years. It had
virtually no systems for monitoring
drivers’ hours and had high
MoT failure and roadside
prohibition rates.
He found Mr Morrin had taken
an “insouciant and over-confident”
approach at the public inquiry,
but concluded he could, just,
trust him to comply in the future.
He accepted the nomination of
Derick Lewis as the new
transport manager.
The company was called to a
further public inquiry in the light
of its failure to arrange a timely
audit, of Mr Lewis writing to the
OTC saying he had decide not to
take up the transport manager
position; of the nomination of
Steven Morris, the company’s
fifth transport manager since
May 2016; of the issue of
delayed and an immediate
prohibitions to a vehicle and
trailer in November 2018; and of
a failure to give the Environment
Agency details of vehicles leased
to a Nathan Jones, who they
were investigating for various
waste offences.
Mr Morrin accepted he had not
contacted the RHA about an audit
until after receiving the second
chaser letter from the TAO datedMaking the revocation and
disqualification orders, the
commissioner said Mr Morrin
had failed to arrange the audit by
the deadline agreed at the
previous inquiry, despite
reminders, by more than five
months. The assurances of regular
roller brake testing had proved
worthless and Mr Morrin had
failed to co-operate with the
Environment Agency’s legally
binding request for information.
He accepted the new transport
manager had made some
improvements to compliance.
However, Mr Morris was the fifth
transport manager in less than
three years: the others were either
absentees or were unable to work
with Mr Morrin and left quickly.
He had no confidence things
would be any different in the end
with Mr Morris.
He had given the operator the
benefit of the doubt at the May
2018 inquiry, only to see Mr Morrin
proceed to ignore the undertaking
he had given and the less formal
assurances he had given on roller
brake testing. He had commented
in May 2018 on his insouciance
over matters of compliance. That
insouciant tone was there again
when he explained away his failure
to arrange an audit as “nothing
more than operational delays”.
He no longer had any confidence
in Mr Morrin to deliver on any of
his promises.
He considered a disqualification
period of two years was
proportionate and appropriate.
Such a period would allow Mr
Morrin to step back from the
industry, undertake training
and, most importantly of all,
undergo the necessary change of
attitude towards the safe
operation of vehicles. ■