The three-year disqualification of Mark Warren, former Transport Manager (TM) of Paul Jones’ Classic Routemasters and Meritrule, from acting as a TM has been cut to one year by the Upper Tribunal on appeal.
The licences held by Meritrule and Classic Routemasters were revoked by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Sarah Bell after she concluded their directors had been a “front” for Paul Jones, sometimes known as Paul Adam Smith.
The TC disqualified Meritrule and its director, Paul Jones’ mother, Jane Jones, from holding or obtaining a PSV O-Licence for 10 years.
She also disqualified Classic Routemasters and its director Melanie Zetterlund for three years. In disqualifying Mr Warren, the TC said that he had allowed the use of his name to provide a legitimate front to the two companies. Mr Warren was perhaps too trusting of Mr Jones even knowing his background. However, a TM in name only, which this effectively was, was about as serious as it could get [routeone/Court Report/12 September 2018].
Before the Tribunal Mr Warren said that he was penalised because the TC could not penalise Mr Jones in relation to Meritrule and Classic Routemasters, just as she could not in the Black Velvet Travel and Western Greyhound case.
There was a group structure under which Yourtransport Group was a holding company and Hireyourtransport was a brokerage company.
At the time Classic Routemasters and Earlswood Coaches were in the group, but only Earlswood Coaches was operating. The intention was to get the Classic Routemasters vehicles back on the road and to acquire vehicles for Meritrule.
There was no work for him to do pending the resolution of those matters, he did not allow his name to be used as a front and he resigned when Mr Jones’ connection with Classic Routemasters emerged.
The Tribunal said that the difficulty for Mr Warren was that, being aware that Mr Jones had been convicted of a serious offence involving counterfeit currency, he allowed a situation to continue in which Meritrule and Classic Routemasters could operate provided they had vehicles on the road.
Mr Warren knew from the outset that Mr Jones had some practical involvement with Meritrule and that he was engaged in establishing a group which would include operators.
His appointment as TM of Meritrule in particular became increasingly farcical. He continued to be contracted to work full-time but he did nothing. Those arrangements enabled Meritrule and Classic Routemasters to engage in transactions with Hireyourtransport at a time when the latter company’s website plainly implied that it was operating vehicles that had been owned by both companies and the vehicle discs were apparently available to be used in vehicles owned or providing services operated by Hireyourtransport.
Reducing the period of disqualification, the Tribunal said that Miss Zetterlund had been found to have fronted, whereas Mr Warren was simply too trusting, but was disqualified for the same period.
They did not think that it was appropriate to make no distinction in terms of the period of disqualification between Miss Zetterlund, the sole director of Classic Routemasters, and Mr Warren, given her collusion in Mr Jones’ fronting arrangements and Mr Warren’s absence of collusion.
