O-licence refused for no-show directors

A Northern Irish company has been denied a restricted O-licence in the Scottish traffic area after its directors refused to attend a public inquiry as requested by the traffic commissioner (TC).

Scotland’s TC Joan Aitken refused to grant Newline Utilities’ permission to run seven vehicles after it sent a representative who was not employed by the company, nor had the required knowledge of the proposed operation, to the PI April.

Newline, a company that carries out groundwork for broadband providers in Northern Ireland, was called in front of the TC following concerns about its links to a sole trader in Northern Ireland and a company named John Oliver Rafferty and Kathryne Rafferty, which trades as KJR Site Services. The company was refused an O-licence in the Scottish traffic area in 2013.

The TC was also concerned that the applicant was operating without a licence, as prohibitions for two vehicles and a trailer were issued to ‘Newline Utilities Ltd’ by DVSA in June 2014.

When the company’s directors, John and Kathryne Rafferty, indicated that they would not be attending the hearing and did not provide a suitable representative to appear on their behalf, the Office of the Traffic Commissioner wrote to the company stating that the TC “requires the attendance of the directors”.

On the date of the PI, self employed driver trainer and former operator John Dolan attended on behalf of the firm, despite his only link to the company being that he had given HGV driving lessons to John Rafferty’s son.

The documents he provided to the TC did not cover the £13,300 in financial resources required for the licence applied for, and Dolan did not have any knowledge of the proposed operation apart from having seen four vehicles in the operator’s yard in Cookstown,  County Tyrone.

In her written decision, the TC said that she was not “opening the gate to an applicant whose director and controlling presence, that is Mr Rafferty, decides not to come to Edinburgh to see me”.

"Sending someone to a public inquiry to be a representative, yet not equipping that person with the knowledge of the case and the documentation, was very unsatisfactory,” added the TC.

She was also dissatisfied that the operator had “appeared to have been difficult with the Northern Ireland Transport Regulation Unit”.

She added: “I did not grant an adjournment as I wanted to use the refusal of this application as a regulatory tool to bring home to Newline and its directors that engagement with operator licencing is not a casual matter.

“It requires attention to detail and a mindset and attitude that is infused with compliance.”

Summing up: The TC said it was “exceedingly rare” for a director of a company to not attend a PI and no exceptional reason for this was given by the company’s management.

• This article was published in the 4 June issue of Commercial Motor. Why not susbcribe?