[2024] UKUT 267 (AAC)

For the most part, Mr Mboya’s grounds of appeal do not distinguish between the case advanced in his personal capacity and that advanced on behalf of the operator (the company of which he is the sole director).

Mr Mboya’s case, advanced in writing and at the hearing of this appeal, is as follows:

while he agrees with the Traffic Commissioner’s findings and his decision was correct, it was also “rather harsh”. The Commissioner should have suspended the operator’s licence for six months, rather than revoked it. He wants to downsize to a single vehicle because running three vehicles is “too much of a problem”. He has also been in poor health “due to covid issues”. Suspension would have been fairer than revocation because he has never caused any accidents, never overloaded his vehicles nor allowed his drivers to cause any danger to other road users. Mr Mboya claims that there are worse operators ‘out there’ who are allowed to continue in business and “I am just not good at covering my back with paperwork as other operators do”. The fair thing would be to give him one “very, very last opportunity”;

the ‘field officers’ (which we take to mean DVSA Examiners) only passed on negative information to the OTC. Positive information was not drawn to the Commissioner’s attention;

he should be disqualified from acting as a transport manager for one year, rather than three years, because “we are all humans and we are always learning”. A one year ‘ban’ will teach him a lesson and allow him to rectify the weaknesses illuminated by the Commissioner’s decision. In relation to his disqualification as transport manager, Mr Mboya “can only accept the [Commissioner’s] findings at 50%”. He offered to provide access to his ‘tacho records’ but was told it was too late for that, he is willing to redo the CPC course and some of the fines issued to him personally were unnecessary and harsh because DVSA officials should have tried to educate rather than punish him;

at the hearing before the Upper Tribunal, Mr Mboya argued that the operator carried out required vehicle maintenance, but he was not informed of the ‘strict record-keeping requirements’;

at the hearing, Mr Mboya also argued that it was unfair of the Commissioner to have found that he falsified records. A more accurate description would have been duplication because roller test brake records carried out for one vehicle were presented as records of tests carried out on a different vehicle.

We should add that, at the hearing, Mr Mboya was unfailingly courteous towards the Upper Tribunal panel and fully accepted that he had make mistakes in the conduct of his transport business.