Decision

Decision for Emily Green t/a Emily Jane Green

Published 14 September 2021

0.1 WEST MIDLANDS TRAFFIC AREA

1. DECISION OF THE TRAFFIC COMMISSIONER

1.1 PUBLIC INQUIRY HELD ON 2 SEPTEMBER 2021

2. APPLICANT: EMILY GREEN T/A EMILY JAYNE GREEN

3. Background

Application details

On 27 April 2021, Emily Green t/a Emily Jayne Green submitted an application for a standard national goods vehicle operator’s licence for two vehicles. The prospective transport manager was Sally Briggs. On the application form Emily Green declared that the nature of the business was “general haulage”. No vehicle details were submitted.

Possible links with other licences

The bank statements supplied by Emily Green in support of her application showed weekly payments from “Viking Skips”. The central licensing unit (CLO) in Leeds drew my attention to possible links between this application and licence OD1130268, held by Barry Taylor which I had revoked in a decision dated 5 February 2021, after hearing at a public inquiry that he had been operating in partnership with Neil and Carl Green trading as “Viking Skips”, not as a sole trader. Much worse, he had operated four vehicles rather than the authorised two; he had never downloaded driver’s tachograph cards or vehicle tachograph data; had failed to give the vehicles any kind of safety inspection beyond that at MOT; had failed to operate any kind of driver defect reporting system; and had operated a vehicle with false number plates which was out of tax and MOT.

There were also possible links between Emily Green and two previous applications which had been refused. One application was made on 19 February 2021 by the partnership of Neil Green, Carl Green and Barry Taylor: I refused this application because, in my decision of 5 February 2021, I had also disqualified Barry Taylor indefinitely from obtaining a licence. The other application was made by Carl Green t/a Saxon Skip Hire UK in November 2020: I refused this application after a public inquiry in March 2021 found that Carl Green had been operating a vehicle without authority and had been an integral part of the highly non-compliant Viking Skips business run by partners Neil Green, Carl Green and Barry Taylor under Barry Taylor’s sole trader licence. CLO suspected that the present application by Emily Green (Neil Green’s daughter) might be a front for continued operation by one or more of these partners.

I recalled that, at an impounding hearing on 9 June 2021, I had refused Barry Taylor’s application for vehicle MV55 FFE which had been detained on 10 May 2021 carrying a skip in the livery of Viking Skips. I dismissed Mr Taylor’s argument that the vehicle had just been on a test drive, after hearing from DVSA that the vehicle had picked up the skip from the Viking yard that morning and had been seen numerous times in April, in a loaded condition, by ANPR cameras. It was clear to me that the partnership had simply continued operating after the revocation of Mr Taylor’s licence took effect on 21 February 2021.

4. Public inquiry

In the light of the above, I decided to consider the application at a public inquiry. This was held in Birmingham on 2 September 2021. Present were applicant Emily Green and father Neil Green (in support). Sally Briggs, the prospective transport manager, did not attend.

Emily Green explained that she was due to sit her transport manager CPC exam on 10 September. Thereafter she hoped to be able to nominate herself as transport manager on the licence in place of Sally Briggs. I asked whether she was planning to operate a “general haulage” business as stated on the application form, or whether she was going to operate in a more niche sector. She stated that she would in fact be operating in the waste sector. She further stated that she had no specific vehicles yet in mind.

I noted that she possessed the financial standing for two vehicles (just) and asked where she would find the funding for the two vehicles from. At this point, Neil Green stated that he would be transferring to his daughter two of the vehicles which had been operated by the Viking Skips partnership. The intention was for Emily Green’s sole trader business, with its standard licence, to carry Viking’s skips for them and so enable the continuation of the business.

I asked Emily Green who the maintenance provider would be. She could not immediately recall and had to consult the briefing papers. She had not given any thought as to what kind of brake tests she would ask the maintainers to carry out. She insisted that she would be her own person and would not be influenced by her father Neil Green or either Carl Green (Neil Green’s brother) or Barry Taylor (Neil Green’s uncle).

5. Consideration

In considering whether or not to grant this application I have been mindful of the Upper Tribunal’s decision on the Heavy Haulage (Scotland) Ltd case (T/2015/16). Here too there were family and business connections between an applicant and a revoked licence and disqualified person. The Scottish traffic commissioner refused to grant the application because, she said, to have done so “for all practical purposes my revocation and disqualification orders” relating to the previous operator “would have no effect”.

Of course, all cases involving family members seeking effectively to be the phoenix for revoked licences need to be considered on the particular facts of the individual case. In this case, the business known as Viking Skips was operated by Barry Taylor, Neil Green and Carl Green over a lengthy period of time in a non-compliant manner where the partners demonstrated wholesale contempt for the law. Viking Skips deserved to go out of business. Although Barry Taylor appealed to the Upper Tribunal against my decision to revoke the licence and disqualify him, his appeal was struck out by the Tribunal before the hearing date. Even after the licence’s revocation on 21 February, Barry Taylor and Neil Green (Carl Green having by then struck out on his own) continued to operate the vehicles, as became clear in the impounding case.

The effect of granting the application from Emily Green would be to allow Viking Skips to continue in business. Ms Green is only in a position to operate a skip business because the vehicles are to be given or lent to her by Neil Green and/or Barry Taylor. I judge that the likelihood of Ms Green acting truly independently from her father is very small. She did not come over to me at the inquiry as being able and willing to forge an independent path. On several of the details of the application (eg maintenance) she had to look to Neil Green for the answer.

Further, there were certain aspects of the application and her answers at the inquiry which were disingenuous at best. On the application form she stated that her business would be “general haulage” when she clearly intended to carry on a skip hire business. The application stated that the intended trading name was “Emily Jayne Green” whereas the intention as I understood it from the inquiry was to carry Viking branded skips. At the inquiry she was vague as to what vehicles she would be acquiring and how they would be funded, until her father Neil Green stepped in to say that the vehicles operated by the Viking Skips partnership would be given over to her.

One factor to Ms Green’s credit is that she is taking the transport manager CPC exam in a few days’ time. I can imagine that, in due course and assuming a pass, I could accept her as transport manager on a different licence in the future.

One must be wary of visiting the sins of a parent upon their children. But Emily Green is an employee of the Viking Skips business and is only in a position to apply to operate vehicles because the Viking vehicles have been put at her disposal. I do not find that she has a mind or resources independent from those of Neil Green. If I were to grant this application, the message it would send out to other operators and the public would be that it does not greatly matter if you ignore all the rules relating to the safe driving and operating of vehicles: if your licence is revoked you can always put up a close family member to apply for a licence in your stead. What I am essentially being invited to do is agree to the continuation of the Viking Skips business, as Neil Green was frank enough to admit. That business, because of the previous conduct of its managing partners, must however close (insofar as its HGV operations are concerned) and cannot be allowed to continue under what would be essentially the same management.

6. Decision

I cannot therefore find that there is the necessary good repute behind this application. I am accordingly refusing it under Section 13A(2)(b) of the 1995 Act.

Nicholas Denton

Traffic Commissioner

7 September 2021