Chesterfield-based Carol Blakey has been given time to show that her application for a restricted licence is not a front for her husband by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Simon Evans.
Mrs Blakey had sought a new one-vehicle restricted licence at a Golborne Public Inquiry.
The TC said that there were two issues: The first was whether she met the main occupation rule and the other was whether this would be Mrs Blakey’s licence or whether she was pretending that it would be hers when it was really her husband Alan’s.
Maintaining that it was going to be her business, Mrs Blakey said that her husband had been a driver for a firm taking disabled children to school, but when that company lost the contract, her husband became unemployed. They had inherited some money and were investing it to give him a job. A previous application for a licence by her husband had been refused.
When asked whether the application was just a front for her husband and, in reality, it would be his business, Mrs Blakey denied that was so, saying she had an accountant who had worked out a business plan for her.
Two things at least made him suspicious that it might be Mr Blakey’s business, said the TC.
The first was the undated parking permission letter which said Carol Blakey, but then referred to “his vehicle”. The second was that the email used to contact Leeds was Mr Blakey’s.
Mrs Blakey said that the person giving her parking permission was their mechanic and that her husband had got the same letter when he applied for a licence.
When asked whether she had got a fresh letter or just put “Carol Blakey” into the letter, she denied that it was the same letter her husband had received. She said that she did not have an email address as she was not computer literate and that her husband drafted the email for her.
She hoped to pay her husband £120 a week, maybe a bit more. Her profit would be just over £3,000 a year and his income would be affected by how well the business was doing.
After the TC said that it sounded like he was not an employee, as an employee’s salary was not usually affected by how the business did, Mrs Blakey maintained that he would be but that the maintenance of the vehicle would have to take priority over anything. At the moment she did not know what his wages would be.
The TC said that Mrs Blakey needed to show him clear evidence that she was running the business – including negotiating with the local authority, booking the vehicle in for maintenance and setting up a separate bank account – and that the working relationship with her husband was as employer and employee.
To do this, the TC said she needed to do two things: Either attend an O-Licence awareness course, or, preferably, obtain the assistance of a transport consultant to help set up systems. He was satisfied that she met the main occupation rule.
