[2025] UKUT 328 (AAC)

The Traffic Commissioner accepted certain positive considerations in the operator’s favour: co-operation with public inquiry process; operator’s office manager had “made inroads into tachograph systems”; recent maintenance records were an improvement (paragraph 25 of the Commissioner’s reasons). However, “any improvement since the DVSA intervention is significantly tempered by the driving of a vehicle from Newport to Coleford, some 30 miles, having been told that it is unroadworthy with three bald tyres” which “speaks to an underlying culture of non-compliance” (paragraph 25).

The operator’s compliance record led the Traffic Commissioner to conclude “that this is not a business I can have any confidence will be compliant in the future”, “the operation has been so dangerous that it must come to an end” and “this is an operation that must come to an end for the benefit of public safety – I find it is no longer fit to be the holder of a goods vehicle operator’s licence” (paragraph 26 of the reasons).

In the view of the Traffic Commissioner, this was a ‘severe’ case according to the classification in the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Guidance Document No 10 (Principles of Decision Making and the Concept of Proportionality). This was a reckless operator whose operation involved compromised road safety, unfair competition, persistent maintenance shortcomings over a 15-month period, and persistent failure to pay vehicle excise tax. The severity of the operator’s regulatory shortcomings “points clearly at revocation and disqualification” (paragraph 27 of the reasons).

Regarding disqualification, the Traffic Commissioner reminded himself that a disqualification order is not inevitable upon the revocation of an operator’s licence. Here, however, there were “two very serious additional features” namely the lies told by Kyle Gettings in an interview under caution and the “failure to cooperate by making a trailer available for inspection”. These fortified the Commissioner’s lack of confidence in future compliance “until there has been a reasonable period of reflection”. A disqualification period of two, rather than three years, was justified given that this was effectively the operator’s first public inquiry and “the apparent lack of any input from the transport manager”.

The Traffic Commissioner revoked the operator’s licence and made two-year disqualification orders in respect of the operator (section 28(1), (4) of the 1995 Act) and Kyle Gettings (section 28(5)). The Commissioner also found that the transport manager had lost his good repute and disqualified him from acting as a transport manager for two years but, as we have said, that disqualification order is not challenged in these proceedings.

The Traffic Commissioner ordered that his decisions were to take effect from 23.59 on 15 February 2025. The Appellants applied to the Commissioner for his decisions to be stayed (suspended) pending determination of these appeal proceedings before the Upper Tribunal. The Commissioner refused to grant a stay. The stay application was not renewed before the Upper Tribunal.