Upper Tribunal upholds revocation and disqualification on grounds of repute and lack of financial standing
The revocation of the licence held by North Warwickshire Travel, as well as the disqualification of its sole Director and Transport Manager (TM) Michael James from holding or obtaining a PSV O-Licence for three years by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Jones, has been upheld by the Upper Tribunal.
The case came before the TC after the Upper Tribunal had earlier quashed the revocation of the six-vehicle international licence held by the firm – trading as Peoples Movers – by TC Nick Denton in Mr James’ absence [routeone/Court Report/8 November 2017] ordering it to be reconsidered [routeone/Court Report/28 February].
Mr James was previously a director of Heartlands Travel, Acorn Bus & Coach, Vals Bus & Coach and Tamworth Coach & Bus all of whose licences were revoked. In February 2015 he was disqualified from holding or obtaining an O-Licence for 12 months.
In his decision, the TC said that it appeared that Mr James had difficulty in running a successful PSV business without falling foul of the regulatory bodies.
He appeared to decide which rules he was going to follow and which he was not going to bother with. That was illustrated by his cavalier attitude to financial standing.
He did not like the legal requirements, so he circumvented them. Mr James had attempted to deceive him by producing documentation he hoped would be believed as a valid factoring agreement. He did not believe it was genuine on account of the high interest rate, which in his view indicated that there was never an intention actually to use the loan.
Mr James had obfuscated and delayed in relation to producing evidence of financial standing. That was calculated. It was clear that the requisite financial standing had not been for a substantial period of time, if at all [routeone/Court Report/11 April].
Dismissing the appeal, the Tribunal said that the TC was provided with a letter from Polesworth confirming that a £50,000 funding facility had been in place since 2016.
For the firm and Mr James, Mark Laprell very properly let them know that the director of Polesworth, who signed the documents on its behalf, was Mr James’ landlord. The TC was not made aware of that link between Mr James and the lender.
The Tribunal was not impressed that relevant information about the lender was not disclosed to the TC. However, the principal point was that the financial facility promised by Polesworth had never been used.
When Mr James was forced to shut down bus routes for lack of drivers, he could have decided to draw funds to resolve the situation, but he did not do so. He was aware that the company’s financial standing was under scrutiny. It was open to him to draw funds to demonstrate to the TC that the loan agreement was affordable. He did not do so, and no good reason was put forward as to why Mr James had not drawn funds from the loan agreement. They saw no good reason for the TC to have granted a grace period; nor was there good reason for the Tribunal to do so.
Mr James had been associated with two other companies whose licences had been revoked on grounds of lack of financial standing within the last five years – Heartlands Travel on 16 December 2013 [routeone/Court Report/22 January 2014] and Vals Coach & Bus on 27 February 2015 [routeone/Court Report/18 March 2015].
The question of repute was only material if the financial standing requirement could be met.
As the Tribunal had concluded that the financial standing requirement could not be met, there was no need for it to deal with repute. There was likewise no challenge to disqualification and it was not submitted that the period of disqualification was too long.
