Decision

Decision for Carmel Coaches Ltd

Published 8 June 2022

0.1 WEST OF ENGLAND TRAFFIC AREA

1. DECISION OF THE TRAFFIC COMMISSIONER

1.1 PUBLIC INQUIRY HELD ON 4 OCTOBER 2021

2. APPLICANT: CARMEL COACHES LTD

3. Background

3.1 Application details

On 11 May 2021 Carmel Coaches submitted an application for a standard international PSV operator’s licence to the Central Licensing Office in Leeds.

The application was for ten vehicles, with six-weekly preventative maintenance inspections to be carried out both by internal mechanic Steven Waters and by external contractor Balsdons Vehicle Services Ltd (“BVS”). The directors of the company are Anthony Hazell and Carolyn Alderton and the nominated transport manager is Anthony Hazell.

3.2 Previous history

There is considerable history attached to Carmel Coaches Ltd and to Anthony Hazell. Most of this was declared on the application form, although in answer to the question “Has anybody named in this application ever had a PSV operator’s licence revoked, suspended or curtailed by any EU licensing authority?” the applicant had put “No”, which was not correct. Given that the licence history, including past disqualifications, was otherwise properly declared, I put this down to a simple error and attached no adverse weight to it.

The licence and compliance history relevant to the current application is as follows:

• PH1098535 – Carmel Coaches Ltd, standard international licence for 40 vehicles granted in May 2011. The directors were Anthony Hazell, Michael Hazell (Anthony’s son) and Carolyn Alderton (Anthony’s daughter). After a public inquiry in March 2014 the licence was revoked with effect from November 2014 owing to severe maintenance shortcomings. Anthony Hazell was disqualified for 18 months from acting as a director and transport manager. An appeal against these decisions was dismissed by the Upper Tribunal on 17 October 2014 (T/2015/53/54).

• PH1145790 – Carmel Coaches Ltd, standard international licence for 15 vehicles granted in December 2016 at a public inquiry in which the traffic commissioner found that Anthony Hazell’s good repute was restored. The licence was subsequently revoked in January 2021 after substantial maintenance shortcomings had been found at a public inquiry in November 2020. The traffic commissioner also found that Anthony Hazell had lost his good repute as a transport manager and disqualified him from acting as such until he re-took and passed the transport manager CPC examination.

• PH1127110 – Carolyn Alderton t/a Carmel Bristol. This is a standard international licence for nine vehicles, granted at a public inquiry in 2014. Ms Alderton is also the nominated transport manager. There is no adverse history with this licence.

Because the November 2020 decision to revoke PH1145790 was still under appeal to the Upper Tribunal at the time this present application was received (the appeal was subsequently withdrawn), TC Kevin Rooney recused himself from considering the application at the public inquiry which would inevitably be required. The matter was then referred by the Senior Traffic Commissioner to me.

The application included the information that Anthony Hazell had, as required by TC Rooney, re-taken and passed his transport manager CPC, doing so in the March 2021 session. He was therefore applying for the restoration of his good repute and to act as transport manager for the company

4. Public inquiry

The public inquiry to consider these matters was held in Bristol on 4 October 2021. Present were Anthony Hazell (director and prospective transport manager) and Andrew Banks, solicitor, representing the company. A few days before the inquiry, the applicant had submitted a statement and supporting papers, for which I was grateful.

The statement made the following points:

• Anthony Hazell’s daughter Carolyn Alderton was a fellow director but would have limited involvement in the business as she had her own operation based in Bristol;

• the company was now seeking a reduced authorisation for five vehicles rather than the ten initially applied for. Appropriate financial standing for five vehicles was demonstrated;

• the intention was to undertake mainly private hire work, as council contracts for school travel were unlikely to be awarded in the light of the company’s previous history;

• Anthony Hazell intended to employ a single driver in addition to driving himself, together with an office manager and a (self-employed) fitter;

• the initial plan (reflected in the application) had been to share safety inspections between BVS and the fitter Steven Waters. Mr Hazell acknowledged that there had been strong criticism of Mr Waters’ effectiveness at the November 2020 public inquiry. He was now proposing to use Scania of Exeter to undertake all pre-MOT inspections and all six-weekly safety inspections;

• Mr Hazell had undertaken a two-day training course with Friendberry in February 2021 prior to taking and passing the CPC exam in March. He had also undertaken a day’s tachograph training with TruTac in May 2021;

• the loss of his licence had been a salutary lesson for Mr Hazell; he was now aiming to run a much smaller operation and desired simply to provide an excellent service to the local community.

Anthony Hazell’s statement also included details about the proposed driver defect reporting system, how the MOT pass rate would be monitored and how he intended to manage drivers’ hours. Arrangements for driver training and the driver disciplinary process were also described.

Attached to the statement were various documents:

• a copy of the compliance audit into Carmel Coaches Ltd carried out in January 2020 by Bellington Compliance Ltd;

• an email from a Willie Willmetts of Red Phoenix Transport Training Solutions to the effect that Stephen (sic) Waters had achieved IRTEC accreditation in April 2020;

• a copy of the new maintenance contract signed on 20 September 2021 with Scania;

• copies of the proposed driver defect check report form and the form for auditing such driver checks;

• copies of the company’s mobile phone policy and driver disciplinary procedure;

• a copy of the invoice from TruTac Ltd dated 5 July 2021 for the provision of tachograph analysis for four drivers until 30 June 2022.

Giving evidence at the inquiry, and in answer to my main question of why, if I granted the application, Carmel’s and Anthony Hazell’s performance would be any better at the third time of asking, Mr Hazell made the following points:

• he did not want to overstretch himself this time and so had reduced his application from ten to five vehicles which he could comfortably manage;

• BVS had been unable to accommodate his vehicles so he had arranged with Scania to do all the periodic safety inspections. Mr Waters was coming up to retirement but for the moment would be retained as a fitter, carrying out minor repairs;

• Scania or Mr Waters would prepare vehicles for MOT [I noted that this rowed back from the commitment in Mr Hazell’s written statement that only Scania would prepare vehicles for MOT];

• Mr Waters’s actual IRTEC certificate was not available;

• roller brake tests would be carried out every 12 weeks, or at every six-week inspection if I preferred;

• he (Mr Hazell) would investigate the causes of any MOT failures and address them. His vehicles’ MOT pass rate had not been bad given their age;

• he had found the transport manager CPC exam very tough but he was proud to have passed it first time. He would undertake to do regular CPC refresher courses from now on;

• the revocation of the company’s licence in 2020 had had a drastic and humiliating effect on him, particularly with regard to his standing in the local community. He had taken on board the TC’s criticism and was determined to get it right this time;

• in summary, Mr Hazell believed he was a capable transport manager and could be trusted to manage this smaller business compliantly.

In answer to various follow-up questions I posed, Mr Hazell said that he had not been able to participate in a longer training course prior to taking the CPC exam because Covid-19 meant that such courses (of 7-10 days) were few and far between. He was prepared to undertake that Mr Waters would not prepare vehicles for MOT. He could live with a reduced authority of three vehicles (the current number actually in the possession of the company) if that was what it took to be granted a licence. He was prepared to undertake further training on how to interpret roller brake test print-outs – an issue on which he had been severely criticised by TC Rooney at the November 2020 public inquiry. He was prepared to rewrite the company mobile phone policy to address the issue of hands-free use (which I had noted had been a contributory factor to a fatal crash involving one of the company’s vehicles in 2014).

5. Consideration

I have considered carefully Anthony Hazell’s case for the re-establishment of his good repute as transport manger and for the granting of the company’s application for a licence. There is much on the positive side to support it. There are contracts in place with Scania for maintenance and with TruTac for drivers’ hours analysis. Policies on mobile phone use, driver disciplinary procedure, driver walk-round checks and MOT pass rate monitoring have been drawn up. The size of the operation would be smaller than that of its predecessors. Most notable of all, Anthony Hazell has fulfilled the requirement laid down by TC Rooney in his decision of 25 November 2020 that he re-take and pass the transport manager CPC examination. I respect and admire Mr Hazell’s achievement – and it is a considerable achievement – in passing first time an exam whose pass rate is little over 50%.

And yet. At the same time as admiring Mr Hazell in some respects, I cannot ignore his past record or overlook some worrying current elements. No fewer than three different traffic commissioners (and also the Upper Tribunal) have been severely critical of Anthony Hazell and his ability to run a compliant operation over the past seven years. In her written decision of 5 June 2014, TC Sarah Bell expressed “grave doubts as to Mr Tony [Anthony] Hazell’s judgement and integrity”. She found him “wanting to such an unacceptable degree, even after copious amounts of advice and support from DVSA, a warning from me and help from the commercial sector”. Anthony Hazell was “not capable or competent to operate the necessary systems to ensure vehicles remain roadworthy when in service and in a lawful manner”. In dismissing the appeal, the Upper Tribunal said that “on any view, this is a very bad case”, referring to the “serious and sustained maintenance failings” involved.

After a public inquiry in October 2019 into licence PH1133411 held by C M Coaches Ltd (and which Anthony Hazell had attended to support his son Michael Hazell who was a transport manager on the licence), TC Nick Jones, in his written decision dated 19 December 2019, found that “Anthony Hazell is a danger to the PSV industry as he is so grossly incompetent. It is deeply worrying that he is both a director and he is a transport manager for other entities. I am unable to make any order in relation to his position as a transport manager or make any finding under section 28 of the Transport Act 1985 as no notice was served on him that these were considerations. Nevertheless it is clear to me that he should retire from the industry at the first opportunity.”

In his written decision of 25 November 2020 on licence PH1145790 held by Carmel Coaches Ltd, TC Kevin Rooney commented that Anthony Hazell “appears so certain in his own flawed thinking that he has simply lost the ability to listen and therefore to learn”. His “approach is old-school. There might be nothing wrong with that normally but with Mr Hazell the degree is such that it makes him dangerous”. “Mr Hazell appears to lie at will” and is “totally set in his ways”.

I have rarely read such damning remarks by colleague TCs about an individual, let alone three sets of such remarks relating to the same person. It is clear to me that I need to be wholly convinced that Anthony Hazell is a changed and reformed man if I am to restore his good repute and grant the application before me.

At the inquiry in Bristol on 4 October 2021 Anthony Hazell stated that he had indeed taken these lessons to heart and was a changed man. However, there are some elements in the application and in his manner at the inquiry which cause me to doubt whether this is truly so.

At the public inquiry in November 2020, TC Rooney’s decision records that Carmel Coaches Ltd’s legal representative, Andrew Banks, pushed Anthony Hazell to a great degree to accept that he would have a second or alternative transport manager (to himself) and a second or alternative maintenance provider (to Mr Waters). He had been very reluctant to do so. Given the strong criticism of Mr Waters’s effectiveness as a fitter I was surprised to see him cited on the application form again as a joint maintenance provider. And Anthony Hazell is again presenting himself as the sole transport manager (albeit on a licence with fewer vehicles than the predecessor licence).

At the inquiry on 4 October 2021, Mr Hazell again sought to claim that his MOT pass rate had been quite good, considering the age of his vehicles. Paragraph 41 of TC Rooney’s November 2020 decision notes that DVSA had shown the failure rate since December 2016 to be 46% against a national average of 7.5%. Mr Rooney further noted that Mr Hazell challenged this but had not been able to provide any evidence in support of his challenge.

Mr Hazell further stated that he had simply looked at the “passed” result on a roller brake test print-out and assumed that it was satisfactory. He could not really be blamed for failing to read the detail properly, although would be happy to take a course on how to interpret such print-outs. But this is to ignore paragraphs 25 and 45-50 of TC Rooney’s decision which makes clear that Mr Hazell was at severe fault and had demonstrated “in the most positive interpretation, a shocking lack of knowledge”.

Mr Hazell also told me at my inquiry that he had done his best to comply when managing licence PH1145790 and “didn’t think that anything much was wrong” with its compliance record. The overall impression that he gave me was that, despite some lip service to the need to take on board lessons learnt etc, he is still in denial about the extent of his past failings. No one reading TC Rooney’s decision could possibly conclude that there was nothing much wrong with the operator’s compliance and Anthony Hazell’s performance.

I was further troubled when I heard that Mr Hazell had taken the transport manager CPC exam at the first possible session after his disqualification and had undergone only a two-day training course (by remote video session) in preparation for it. I accept that Mr Rooney’s decision did not specify either a timescale for re-taking the exam or any requirement for training/learning in preparation for it. But given the very severe criticism made of Mr Hazell that he was a) incompetent and b) that he wrongly considered himself competent, if he had truly taken this criticism to heart I would have expected him to have realised the need to rebuild his knowledge from the ground up and undertake some lengthier training. Seven to ten day transport manager CPC courses are available, and have been (through online participation) throughout the Covid period.

A relatively small point, but one that is indicative of this failure to learn lessons, is the mobile phone policy which was provided in the operator’s bundle. This pointed out to drivers the consequences of breaking the law and stated that

“handheld phones can only be used when safely parked or to call 999 in an emergency when unable to stop. Hands free phones can be used legally but you can face prosecution if you are seen not to be in control of the vehicle. Company policy is to ban use of handheld [my emphasis] phones and microphones while driving. Drivers are recommended to switch off their phones before starting the engine.”

I recall the fatal incident in which one of Carmel’s vehicles was involved in May 2014 when two passengers were killed and seven seriously injured. The driver was subsequently convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving and sentenced to five and two years respectively in prison (to run concurrently). A major contributory factor was said by the police to have been a number of hands-free mobile phone calls the driver made during the journey, one of which had lasted for eight minutes at the time of the crash. Given the devastating consequences of a driver using a hands-free mobile phone which the company had already experienced, I found it astonishing that the company’s mobile phone policy does not explicitly prohibit such use.

I give Mr Hazell some credit for being prepared to give undertakings to meet my concerns - confining the fitter Mr Waters to minor repairs and beefing up the mobile phone policy to prohibit hands-free as well as handheld sets. But I should not have had to seek such undertakings.

I consider that, Carmel Coaches Ltd and Anthony Hazell having failed so catastrophically to run a compliant operation in the past, and with Mr Hazell having now lost his good repute as a transport manager and been disqualified twice, the onus is heavily on the applicant to convince me that it deserves a third opportunity. For the reasons outlined above, I do not consider that it does. The fact that the licence application was originally for ten vehicles and had fitter Steven Waters on a par with Scania does not convince me that Anthony Hazell had in mind a radically streamlined and different operation from the outset. He has shown himself prepared to make concessions when asked to do so (eg the degree of Mr Waters’s involvement, changes to the mobile phone policy) but it does not seem to have occurred to him to include them in his original plans. Mr Hazell also appeared to forget one of the changes offered: in his prior written submission he stated that only Scania would prepare vehicles for MOT, whereas at the inquiry he stated that both Mr Waters and Scania would do this. The issue is not a trivial one, as TC Rooney was so critical of the fact that Mr Waters appeared incapable of preparing and keeping vehicles in a condition where they would consistently pass their MOT. Evidence was presented that Mr Waters had gained IRTEC accreditation in April 2020, but the actual certificate was not available and in any case this had clearly not been enough to persuade TC Rooney in November 2020 that all was well.

6. Conclusion

Given my concerns outlined in paragraphs 19-26 above, I am unable to conclude that Anthony Hazell has re-established his good repute as transport manager or that I can trust him or the company to comply with requirements relating to roadworthiness of vehicles were I to grant its application.

This being the case, I am refusing the company’s application under Section 14ZA(2)(b) and (d), 14ZA(3)(a) and 14ZC(1)(a) and (b) of the 1981 Act.

Nicholas Denton

Traffic Commissioner

13 October 2021