Fears over fronting lead to super-speedy revocation

Fears over fronting lead to super-speedy revocation

An Enfield operator has had its licence revoked after the director failed to convince a deputy traffic commissioner his business wouldn’t be used for fronting.

The office of the traffic commissioner (OTC) first began making enquiries into Super Speedy Transport (SST) after its director Mehdi Fadimanesh applied for a licence in the name of a new company, Speedy Transit. Companies House records revealed Fadimanesh had ceased to be director of SST in December 2019 and was replaced with Shanaz Kahkeshani.

Kahkeshani was director of two haulage firms, MED Transport and RDS Transport, both of which had previously had their licences revoked. Dawood Noroozani was the transport manager on these revoked licences and had been disqualified, until he subsequently passed a CPC transport manager examination.

Amid concerns about who was really involved in SST and Speedy Transit, deputy TC John Baker called them all to an Eastbourne PI. Fadimanesh told the DTC that Kahkeshani was his wife, he had sold SST’s vehicles to her and he had been in the process of selling the business to her and Noroozani as well, so that he could start up his new company, Speedy Transit.

However, this plan was put on hold when the OTC raised concerns and so no money had exchanged hands and he had now been reinstated as SST’s director. But Baker was not convinced he would remain in sole control.

In his written decision, the DTC said the case was unusual in that the existing licence of SST was being considered despite the absence of an adverse compliance history. His concern was any involvement by Kahkeshani and Noroozani and their previous poor records in operator licensing.

DTC Baker said he thought it more likely than not that if the licence for SST was continued, Kahkeshani and Noroozani would resume attempts to operate vehicles under its licence. The risk, the DTC said, was that the level of non-compliance found in MED Transport and RDS Transport would therefore be repeated.

As a result, he revoked SST’s licence and refused the application for Speedy Transit on the ground that repute was not made out. However, taking into consideration his previous good regulatory record, Baker did not disqualify Fadimanesh.