TC Kevin Rooney has revoked the licence of Diamond Travel until changes have been made
The licence held by deceased Sheffield-based Michael Kinsley, trading as Diamond Travel, has been revoked and an application by his wife to take over the business refused by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Kevin Rooney, because it had been run for nine months by an operator who had lost his repute.
In revoking the existing licence and refusing the new application, the TC said that it was a complete mess. The licence was being run by Graham Lemmons, who had lost his repute as an operator. The accounts and insurance were in his name. The vehicles had been operated illegally all the way through as the person paying the drivers did not hold the licence and there was no Transport Manager (TM) in place.
For Wendy Kinsley, who was seeking a three-vehicle national licence, Paul Carless said that she had not seen the nominated TM Dean MacDonald for nine months and it was accepted there had been no active nominated TM for that time. However, she had had the benefit of the help of the proposed TM John Proctor.
After the TC commented that one of the issues was who was running the business, Mrs Kinsley said that she would be responsible for running it. After her husband died Mr MacDonald did not want to continue as TM but he did not let her know. She was in full time employment with the Education Authority, but if the licence was granted she would cut down her hours.
Mr Proctor had been helping her out but she had not been paying him so far. She intended to reduce the business and make it more manageable. She had previously helped her husband in the business and had seen a lot of how not to do it and denied that she was a front for Mr Lemmings, saying it had been her husband’s business and she wanted to carry it on.
Asked about missing tachograph charts, she said a lot of it was down to one driver who refused to hand them in, saying that he didn’t need to as he was self employed. She had four drivers at the moment, all of whom were self employed and paid their own tax and national insurance. The TC commented that that was just a tax scam.
Mr Lemmings said that he had not attended the Public Inquiry into his previous restricted licence as he could not get time off to attend and had felt he was not going to use it anyway. When he came back to Sheffield Mrs Kinsley was in a state and he wanted to help. He said he would run the licence until she decided what she wanted to do. He had just been helping the widow of a friend. He paid all the wages. The business address and the bank account were his. The intention was that everything would be swapped over.
In his decision, the TC said that a lot of things needed to be done to straighten things out before a further application could be made and he felt it appropriate that the vehicles would be off the road for some weeks.
