[2024] UKUT 268 (AAC)

The argument that an individual without criminal convictions must be considered of good repute cannot succeed. This would be inconsistent with paragraph 1(9) of Schedule 3 to the PPVA 1981 which makes it clear that the absence of relevant criminal convictions does not prevent the Traffic Commissioner from determining that an individual lacks good repute.

We do not accept that the present application for an operator’s licence was dealt with unfairly. If the OTC informed Mr Hazell that they could not advise him about what he needed to establish in order to show good repute, they were correct to do so. If an applicant requires legal or other advice, it is an applicant’s responsibility to obtain it from some source other than the OTC. This is because a regulator cannot maintain its independence if it provides advice about a particular application.

We do not accept that the Commissioner wrongly determined that Mr Hazell (as designated transport manager) lacked good repute. Mr Hazell’s argument is made by reference to assertions about his many years of operating a well-respected transport business. However, the Commissioner’s determination flowed from a finding that Mr Hazell failed genuinely to acknowledge his own and Carmel Coaches Ltd’s troubled regulatory history. That finding was based, in large part, on the impression made by Mr Hazell when giving oral evidence at the public inquiry before the Commissioner. We were not at the inquiry, and, in the absence of some obvious error, the Upper Tribunal should be slow to interfere with a Commissioner’s findings as to the impression made by a witness. As Lord Hoffman, sitting as a member of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords in Biogen Inc. v. Medeva Ltd [1997] RPC 1, said:

“45.

The need for appellate caution in reversing the trial judge’s evaluation of the facts is based upon much more solid grounds than professional courtesy. It is because specific findings of fact, even by the most meticulous judge, are inherently an incomplete statement of the impression which was made upon him by the primary evidence. His expressed findings are always surrounded by a penumbra of imprecision as to emphasis, relative weight, minor qualification and nuance ... of which time and language do not permit exact expression, but which may play an important part in the judge’s overall evaluation.”

We see no obvious error in the Commissioner’s findings as to the impression made by Mr Hazell at the public inquiry. Those findings cannot be considered plainly wrong, and we reject this aspect of the Appellant’s case.

Finally, in relation to good repute, we reject the argument that the Commissioner failed properly to take into account documents provided on the day of the public inquiry hearing. Having now considered the documents, it is clear that they were summarised in paragraph 6 of the Commissioner’s reasons and must, therefore, have been read by him. The documents were references produced in support of Mr Hazell’s case before a 2022 public inquiry, as the Commissioner observed, and spoke to matters of general good character rather than matters of regulatory compliance. They could not realistically have made a difference to the outcome and the Commissioner was not, therefore, required to provide a lengthy explanation as to why the references did not persuade him that Mr Hazell had established his good repute.