[2024] UKUT 420 (AAC)

The Appellant, Digaway Limited, is a company incorporated on 6 February 2019 of which Daniel Jenkins (“Mr Jenkins”) has at all material times been the sole director and person with significant control. The Appellant is, for all relevant intents and purposes, Mr Jenkins in corporate form.

From 21 December 2020, the Appellant held a restricted goods vehicle operator’s licence authorising three vehicles in respect of its business of renting and leasing of construction machinery and equipment. The licence was notably used in relation to the hiring out of skips.

In October 2023, Mr Jenkins was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm and criminal damage following an incident during which he dumped earth on the driveway of a customer with whom he had a dispute about payment for skip hire and, when the customer remonstrated with him, assaulted him. Mr Jenkins was sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment, from which he was released from custody on 7 May 2024. He was anxious to stress to us, and we accept, that he spent about eight months’ in prison before early release.

However, whilst he appears to have made some arrangements in respect of his excavation equipment hire business, it seems that Mr Jenkins did not make any arrangements for the management of that part of his business that involved transport operations (notably skip hire) whilst he was in prison. Indeed, whilst it seems that he arranged for some skips to be collected by another company, as recorded in the Commissioner’s decision dated 13 November 2024 refusing a stay, Mr Jenkins neither added another director to the Appellant company nor arranged for that part of the business to be managed or operated by others during the period of his imprisonment. The address for the Appellant company given to the Commissioner remained as his home address in Bargoed. As we understand it, no one lived there, and no one checked on the post etc, during his absence in prison. Furthermore, no one checked the emails Mr Jenkins received at the email address he used for his work.

Furthermore, as we understand it, the company was in default of filing its accounts (the last filed accounts were up to 28 February 2021) and its confirmation statement (last filed on 5 February 2022). Companies House notified Mr Jenkins as director of the Appellant company that it proposed to strike off the company. That proposal is still active.

On 12 October 2023, having been informed of the conviction and sentence, and the proposal to strike off the company, the Commissioner wrote to “The Director” of the Appellant company, informing him that she was considering making a direction under section 26(1) of the Act to revoke the operator’s licence because there had been a material change of circumstances of the licence-holder, namely that the company may no longer be of the required fitness nor have the required financial resources to hold a restricted operators’ licence. That notice was properly sent to the address in Bargoed, but Mr Jenkins did not himself receive it because he was in prison and no one was there to pick it up. No response having been received, on 27 December 2023, the Commissioner made a direction under section 26 and the Appellant’s operator’s licence was thus revoked.

The Appellant appealed to this tribunal out-of-time. On 27 June 2024, Judge Mitchell extended time to appeal. On 13 November 2024, the Commissioner refused the Appellant’s application to stay the revocation of the licence.