Disqualifying William Phillips, sole Director of Bristol-based Eastville Coaches, and the company itself, from holding or obtaining an O-Licence indefinitely, Traffic Commissioner (TC) Kevin Rooney said: “By indefinite, I mean either permanently or that it is impossible now to foresee what Mr Phillips could do to allow that disqualification to be lifted.”
Previously, the TC revoked the licence held by Kelvyn Haines and disqualified him from holding a licence after hearing that Mr Phillips had taken it over to enable Eastville to continue operating after its licence had been revoked. At the time the TC said he was proposing to disqualify Mr Phillips and Mr Eastville [routeone/9 May/Court Report].
Mr Phillips responded via his transport consultant saying that he didn’t feel that action against him was warranted. The TC therefore called a Public Inquiry (PI) to allow Mr Phillips to explain why and put his case, but he failed to attend.
Making the disqualification orders the TC said that Mr Phillips and Eastville Coaches had a long and troubled life as operators. Eastville’s Licence was granted in 1992. It appeared at PI in 2002 in relation to the company’s and driver convictions relating to driving time and tachographs convictions from 1999.
Eastville was called to its second PI in 2008 primarily due to maintenance after 12 prohibitions for mechanical defects. A third PI came in 2009 for maintenance and drivers’ hours. The fourth came in 2009 for more drivers’ hours. A fifth PI in 2014 was due to maintenance issues. The licence ended in 2016 after the company’s and Mr Phillips’ sixth PI, over maintenance and drivers hours related.
At the time, when he revoked Eastville’s Licence, the Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) decided not to disqualify the company or Mr Phillips, but said that if any of them were associated with an O-Licence in future it would require very close scrutiny and careful consideration by the TC.
Mr Rooney said that the DTC clearly never had in mind that Mr Phillips would simply “acquire” another operator’s licence to allow him to continue.
Three vehicles on the licence held by Mr Haines were inspected by the DVSA at St Bede’s School in Bristol in December 2017. All received immediate prohibitions.
Follow-up investigations found that Mr Phillips had taken control of Mr Haines’ licence and continued his operation of Eastville, as though nothing had ever happened.
The catalogue of failures was immense. Vehicles were in a very poor condition. None had received safety inspections for almost 18 months. DVSA found numerous driver’s hours infringements and vehicles were driven without tachograph cards so it was impossible to know who had driven them and whether that driving was safe and legal.
