Decision for Hulk Express Transport Limited (OC2078489)
Written decision of the Deputy Traffic Commissioner in the North West of England for Hulk Express Transport Limited
IN THE NORTH WEST TRAFFIC AREA
HULK EXPRESS TRANSPORT LIMITED – OC2078489
DECISION OF DEPUTY TRAFFIC COMMISSIONER G. PENGELLY
DECISION
As follows:
-
The application is REFUSED pursuant to section 13 of the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995 (“the 1995 Act”);
-
Specifically, the operator does not meet the requirement of being of good repute pursuant to section 13A(2)(b) of the 1995 Act;
-
Any further application from Joseph Hartley or this operator is to be referred to a Traffic Commissioner.
Background
This was a resumed public inquiry (“PI”) concerning Hulk Express Transport Limited (“the operator”).
The relevant procedural history can be shortly stated:
- The operator applied for a standard national goods licence on 04.12.24;
- The application was refused, on the papers, on 11.03.25 because bank statements were not supplied in the name of the right entity;
- That decision was successfully appealed to the Upper Tribunal for various reasons;
- After the appeal, the application came back to this Traffic Area; further financial documentation was requested by the Office of the Traffic Commissioner;
- The operator provided bank statements in the period August to October 2025 as requested by this Traffic Area;
- There was an issue, identified by staff at the Office of the Traffic Commissioner, as to whether those bank statements were genuine;
- A public inquiry was listed on 19.02.26 for me to deal with that issue – that was my first involvement in this case;
- I adjourned the PI to give the operator an opportunity to bring further evidence before me on the question of whether those bank statements were genuine or not (paragraph 13 below);
- The PI was adjourned until today’s date.
The Call to Public Inquiry
The call-up letter for the re-convened PI was dated 07.05.26; it was sent, by recorded delivery, to the operator’s address. It was delivered and signed-for on 09.05.26.
The pertinent matters raised in the call-up letter were whether this operator was of good repute (section 13A(2)(b) of the 1995 Act) and whether this operator had appropriate financial standing (section 13A(2)(c) of the 1995 Act).
The Public Inquiry
The first PI took place at the Office of the Traffic Commissioner in Golborne on 19.02.26. Mr. Hartley, the operator’s director, and Mr. Barrett, the proposed transport manager (“TM”) attended on that occasion.
The resumed PI took place at the Office of the Traffic Commissioner sitting at the Ibis Hotel in Haydock, St. Helen’s.
No-one attended from the operator at the resumed PI.
I waited until half an hour after the PI was due to start.
I was satisfied there had been proper service of the notice of the hearing (paragraph four, above). I proceeded in absence.
The Evidence
I had fully read and considered the bundle in advance of the first PI. I re-read it and the new material in advance of the resumed PI.
The pertinent parts of Mr. Hartley’s evidence on 19.02.26 can be summarised as follows:
- When he set up the operator’s Revolut bank account, the bank gave him three accounts – a current (which he called the ‘main’) account, a savings account, and a European account; Mr. Hartley did not specifically ask for those two other accounts but that was just the bank’s practice;
- He retrieved the relevant bank statements (August to October 2025) from his three Revolut accounts – these were all ‘.pdf’ documents;
- He asked his daughter to help him to send the bank statements to the Office of the Traffic Commissioner because he needed her help as someone who is better with technology;
- He sent his daughter the statements on WhatsApp from his phone;
- Somehow, either in the process of Mr. Hartley’s sending those statements to his daughter or in his phone’s preparing to send those statements to his daughter, the various ‘.pdf’ statements from those three different Revolut accounts all merged into a single, merged ‘.pdf’ document;
- Accordingly, the various formatting errors and numerical anomalies in the statements discussed were caused by the merging of those ‘.pdf’ documents into one document;
- Mr. Hartley’s daughter sent the material she had to the Office of the Traffic Commissioner on Mr. Hartley’s behalf thinking it was the right document;
- Mr. Hartley did not specifically check that document before his daughter sent it;
- Mr. Hartley said he had evidence on his phone, e.g. his WhatsApp message to his daughter.
So far as is relevant, in my decision notice after the hearing on 19.02.26, I made these directions:
-
…
-
A screenshot (or any other relevant evidence Mr. Hartley has) of the WhatsApp message he sent to his daughter enclosing the ‘.pdf’ Revolut bank statements covering the period August to October 2025. Such a screenshot or other evidence should include clear evidence of when that message was sent to her;
-
Copies of the document/documents he sent her;
-
Copies of the Revolut bank statements for the other accounts (i.e. the Savings and European accounts) in the period 01.08.25 to 31.10.25;
-
Any other evidence the operator or Mr. Hartley wishes for me to consider in deciding the question of whether the bank statements were edited or falsified as alleged;
-
…”
That notice was sent to the operator.
The operator sent an email dated 05.03.26 attaching certain documents that can be found at pages 114-120 of the bundle; in summary, those documents are:
- A screenshot of an email dated 04.10.25 from Mr. Hartley’s daughter to Mr. Hartley that contains an attachment with the partially-visible title, “Monthly-statements 01 Aug 2025 04 Oct…”;
- Screenshots of the account details of three Revolut accounts where, for each account, the IBAN number is not fully visible. One of those accounts appears to accept US dollars and the other two accept British pounds.
The accompanying email from Mr. Hartley said the following:
- “To whom it may concern…Please see documentation requested [regarding] my [PI]. I have provided screenshots showing dates [etc] from my daughter as the [Traffic Commissioner] requested. [From] screenshots of the European bank accounts, it [is] quite clear they got all mixed into one as it shows [the IBAN] numbers on the statements sent [in]… [the IBAN] numbers are only for international banking… I would like to add I am a[n] honest person[, I]… don’t ha[v]e [a] criminal record… all I want to do it have my license granted so I can work I can be checked closely an[d] monitored. This is putting [m]e and my family under distress… I have 6 children… I just want to work and earn a[n] honest living. I do hope you will please grant the licence and put me to work after 14months of parking fees servicing an[d] maintenance [etc] and not working the truck it[‘]s crippling… Many thanks”
Further case management directions were sent to the operator on 07.05.26. Nothing further has been received.
Legal Framework
I must only grant a goods licence if the requirements under section 13 of the 1995 Act are satisfied; if the requirements are not satisfied, I must refuse the application: section 13(5) of the 1995 Act.
The burden of proving that the various requirements of the legislation are met rests on the operator: see the appeal case of 2003/292 AJ Transport.
I must be satisfied, among other things, that the operator is of good repute and has appropriate financial standing: section 13A(2)(b) and (c) of the 1995 Act.
Whilst the operator bears the burden of proving that the various requirements are met in this case, in my view, where – as here - there is a particular factual basis for a refusal of an application, the burden of proving the allegation founding that refusal rests on the person making the allegation. It is, of course, the civil standard of proof that applies.
Findings of Fact
I am satisfied that the bank statements in the period from August to October 2025 were falsified by this operator and submitted in an effort to mislead the Traffic Commissioner into believing that financial standing was met when it may not have been. I am satisfied that Mr. Hartley did not tell me the truth on the last occasion at the PI on 19.02.26. These are my reasons:
First, there are examples of serious anomalies in the statements:
-
Comparing page 92 of the statements Mr. Hartley originally sent through and the ‘certified copy’ of the statement for the corresponding period (which is at page 97), the difference between the two figures on 22.09.25 is £12,500. This is exactly the figure that Mr. Hartley needed to be granted a licence. In one set of statements, the balance on that day is £26.03 (page 97); in the other, the balance on that day after the same payment is £12,526.93. The figure £12,526.93 is written in an odd way that involves it being spread across two lines – other similar figures on that page do not have that formatting;
-
Comparing page 89 of the statements Mr. Hartley originally sent through and the ‘certified copy’ of the statement for the corresponding period (which is at page 98), the difference between the two figures on 31.08.25 is £12,500. This is exactly the figure that Mr. Hartley needed to be granted a licence. In one set of statements, the balance on that day is £47.76 (page 98); in the other, the balance on that day after the same payment is £12,547.76 (page 89). Again, the latter figure is written in an odd way on page 89.
Second, I note the unsatisfactory procedural history which has involved an enormous amount of delay in Mr. Hartley’s application due to issues with bank statements, an appeal about that, and significant ongoing hardship for Mr. Hartley (paragraph 3 and 15, above). All of that gave Mr. Hartley a powerful incentive to edit the statements after the case returned to the Traffic Commissioner.
Third, Mr. Hartley has failed to produce the material that would ‘make good’ the account he gave me on the last occasion:
-
This is an inquisitorial jurisdiction;
-
Specific documents, designed to test the veracity of the account Mr. Hartley gave me, were requested by me to help me discharge my duties on behalf of the public. They were all reasonable requests;
-
They have not been provided.
Traffic Commissioners are entitled to draw adverse inferences from an operator’s failure to produce specific documents when they are requested to do so in the clearest terms. The decision of the Supreme Court in Prest v Petrodel Resources Limited and others [2013] UKSC 34, albeit in a very different statutory context, provides guidance about to first-instance tribunals about how adverse inferences can appropriately be drawn in circumstances where directions have not been complied with: per Lord Sumption JSC at [43]-[45].
Fourth, Mr. Hartley’s explanation of how this happened (the merging of the .pdf documents) is vague (paragraph 12(e), above) and unsupported by the evidence (paragraph 14, above). It was untested in questioning by me at the PI because Mr. Hartley did not attend.
My assessment, for the reasons, set out above, was that Mr. Hartley was not a credible witness of fact when he gave evidence to me on 19.02.26.
Decision
Trust between Traffic Commissioners and operators is a critical part of the regulatory system we have in Great Britain in respect of goods vehicle operators. As the Transport Tribunal said in the appeal case of 2006/27 Fenlon (“Fenlon”),
- “…trust is one of the foundation stones of operator licensing. Traffic, commissioners must be able to trust operators to comply with all the relevant laws, rules and regulations because it would be a physical and financial impossibility to police every aspect of the licensing system all day and every day. In addition, operators must be able to trust other operators to observe the relevant laws, rules and regulations. If trust between operators breaks down and some operators believe that others are obtaining an unfair commercial advantage by ignoring laws, rules or regulations then standards will inevitably slip and the public will suffer” (emphasis added)
In this case, Mr. Hartley has violated any trust that could exist between a Traffic Commissioner and the operator by:
- Submitting falsified bank statements in support of his application; and
- Not telling me the truth about that fact at a previous PI.
Trust that is lost can still be re-earned. As at today’s date, however, Mr. Hartley has not won that trust back.
Because of the findings of fact I have made in this case (paragraph 28, above) about the operator’s sole director, I find that the operator is not of good repute.
Accordingly, my decision is as follows:
- The application is REFUSED pursuant to section 13 of the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995 (“the 1995 Act”);
- Specifically, the operator does not meet the requirement of being of good repute pursuant to section 13A(2)(b) of the 1995 Act;
- Any further application from Joseph Hartley or this operator is to be referred to a Traffic Commissioner.
25.06.26
Giles Pengelly
Deputy Traffic Commissioner