Please note: This case is currently under appeal to the Upper Tribunal for which a decision is awaited.
International O-Licences authorising a total of 13 vehicles held by Blackburn-based Abbey Coaches (Darwen) and Rigby’s Executive Coaches have been revoked by Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) Simon Evans following a Golborne Public Inquiry (PI).
Asif Mohammed Din was the sole Director of both Abbey and Rigby’s. Their licences were curtailed to four and nine vehicles respectively following a 2021 PI. Each company had a long but unenviable history of calls to PI.
The nominated Transport Managers (TMs) for both companies were Farid Saad and Martin Evans. Abbey sought an increase from four vehicles to 10 vehicles, and Rigby’s from nine vehicles to 15 vehicles. Farid Saad, trading as Swift Travel (North West) was seeking an international O-Licence for one vehicle.
At the September 2021 PI it was found that both Abbey and Rigby’s had been operating without a nominated TM for nine months. There were some positives and, in that light, both licences had been allowed to continue. DTC Miles Dorrington indicated that it would be the last chance for the operators, and he accepted the appointment of TM Saad.
Revoking the licences, DTC Evans said that the 10 prohibitions issued at Glastonbury Festival to four of the operators’ vehicles on 22 June 2023 amounted to serious failures to secure the safety of passengers. There was no evidence of any formal investigation or analysis of what had gone wrong, despite the extent of the encounters.
There was little evidence that MoT pass rates were improving. Since the beginning of 2023, three of five vehicles had failed at first presentation. It was admitted that some drivers were deployed on a self-employed basis when the operators were unable to justify such status.
DTC Evans was unable to conclude that Rigby’s met the required financial standing requirements. Even where financial standing was met mathematically, there was a reliance on the finances of Coach Travel Solutions, a separate entity. Finances must be held exclusively in the name of the licence holder.
The Companies House requirements for Rigby’s had been breached by a failure to file evidence for the preceding two financial years. He was unable to be satisfied that vehicles were being operated by the individual company that holds each licence. The evidence was to the effect that employed drivers were in the employment of, and paid by, Coach Travel Solutions, therefore the operator was neither Rigby’s nor Abbey. Patently, the operators had not taken up the last chance offered by DTC Dorrington.
Holding that Martin Evans was unfit to act as a TM and disqualifying him from acting as such for two years, the DTC said that there was scant evidence that he had had any active role in the business.
Granting the application by Mr Saad, with a provision for an independent audit of his operation within six months, the DTC said that the DVSA investigation scored Mr Saad as ‘mostly satisfactory’. In that light, and by necessarily narrow margins, DTC Evans did not find his good repute to have been lost, but tarnished.
