The revocation of the 15-vehicle national licence held by Bargoed-based Richard Bradford, trading as Bradfords Minibus Hire, and his disqualification from holding a PSV O-Licence and from acting as a Transport Manager (TM) for five years by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Victoria Davies because of serious drivers’ hours offences and vehicle maintenance problems have been put on hold pending an appeal to the Upper Tribunal.
Evidence was given that analysis of the tachograph records revealed numerous occasions of drivers not using their cards to record journeys, and of drivers withdrawing their cards to avoid recording drivers’ hours offences.
Seven drivers, including Mr Bradford, were prosecuted for a total of 40 drivers’ hours offences. Three of the drivers were sentenced by the Merthyr Tydfil Magistrates.
- Kimberley Evans pleaded guilty to one offence of knowingly making a false record and one offence of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry. She was fined £300 with costs
- David Woodland pleaded guilty to one offence of knowingly making a false record and two offences of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry. He was fined £450 with costs
- Granville Price pleaded guilty to one offence of knowingly making a false record and two offences of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry. He was fined £450 with costs.
The District Judge determined that the cases of Richard Bradford, Gareth Bradford (Mr Bradford’s son), Stephanie Bennett, and Robert Barbero were too serious to be dealt with in the Magistrates’ Court and committed their cases to the Crown Court, for consideration as to whether custodial sentences were appropriate.
At the Crown Court, Mr Barbero pleaded guilty to two offences of knowingly making a false record and six offences of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry. He was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and fined £800 with costs.
Ms Bennett pleaded guilty to three offences of knowingly making a false record and two offences of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry.
She was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months and fined £600 with costs.
Gareth Bradford pleaded guilty to four offences of knowingly making a false record, six offences of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry, and one offence of exceeding driving time without the required break. He was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and fined £1,000 with costs.
Richard Bradford pleaded guilty to three offences of knowingly making a false record and five offences of failing, without reasonable excuse, to make a tachograph record or entry. He was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and fined £1,300 with costs.
A maintenance investigation highlighted a number of serious concerns, including that undertakings given by the operator at a Public Inquiry (PI) were not being fulfilled. Concerns about maintenance arrangements included driver defect reporting, brake tests, and prohibition notices issued to the operator’s vehicle, with four immediate prohibition notices issued at the time of the investigation.
Making the revocation and disqualification orders, the TC said drivers’ hours compliance goes directly to road safety. These were serious offences committed not just by those driving on behalf of the licence holder, but by the licence holder himself, who was also the TM. Some of the offences committed by Richard Bradford were offences of knowingly making false tachograph records. Offences of which dishonesty was a feature, which was an aggravating factor and obviously went to the question of trust.
There were ineffective analysis procedures in place to detect falsification, drivers’ hours or working time directive infringements, and insufficient procedures in place to ensure appropriate use of tachograph or manual records by drivers. This despite a warning given to the operator following one of its drivers having been issued with a prohibition notice for failing to use a tachograph card.
There was ineffective driver training, with ineffective monitoring and disciplinary procedures in place, particularly relating to driver walk-round checks and defect reporting. There were still issues of driver reportable defects being found, still extended safety inspection intervals and concerns about maintenance recording and lack of suitably qualified maintenance staff.
There were road safety critical defects on vehicles in service and a prohibition at MoT. The operator’s prohibition rate was extremely high, at more than four times the national average, and there is a low MoT pass rate with the initial fail rate more than double the national average.
There had been previous unsatisfactory maintenance investigations resulting in a PI when the operator agreed detailed undertakings, specifically to address concerns about maintenance, driver walk-round checks and brake testing. Despite agreeing to those undertakings, the operator was failing to adhere to them at the time of the DVSA maintenance investigation last year and the same failures persisted, showing inadequate response.
Weighed against the adverse findings were some positive features. Mr Bradford co-operated with the enforcement investigations and with the PI process; he had made some changes since the DVSA investigations which had resulted in improved levels of compliance.
As TM, he recognised his failings and had recently sought to improve his knowledge by attending a TM refresher training course. However, despite those positive features the TC considered this case to be in the ‘severe’ category. Consequently, she ruled that Mr Bradford had lost his repute as both an operator and a TM.
The TC directed that, should Richard Bradford wish to be appointed as a TM in the future, he must appear before a TC to determine whether his repute should be restored.
Regarding the vocational driving licences held by the drivers convicted, Richard Bradford, Gareth Bradford, Mr Barbero, and Ms Bennett had their licences revoked and each was disqualified from holding a PCV driving licence for 12 months. Ms Evans had her licence suspended for five weeks. Mr Woodland and Mr Price each had their licences suspended for six weeks.
