Meredith & Ors

For large goods vehicle licences, fitness is assessed by reference to the holder’s conduct as a driver. Personal circumstances relevant to the conduct itself may be considered, but ordinary sentencing mitigation is not relevant at that preliminary stage.

The decision then has a separate second stage: whether the conduct requires revocation and disqualification or only suspension. At that stage, personal circumstances and the holder’s subsequent driving record may be relevant. Practice Direction 3 is guidance and must not remove the Traffic Commissioner’s discretion. A decision-maker must assess the driver’s conduct as a whole, including subsequent compliance.

The appellants were large goods vehicle drivers whose licences were revoked and whose disqualification periods were imposed following convictions for tachograph falsification and related offences. The Traffic Commissioner applied Practice Direction 3. The justices dismissed their appeals, which were rehearings under the Road Traffic Act 1988.

The appellants challenged the legality of the guidance and contended that the Traffic Commissioner and justices had failed to consider relevant matters, including their personal circumstances, the nature of the journeys concealed and their subsequent clean driving records. The central issues were the proper meaning of conduct as a driver and whether revocation, rather than suspension, was required.

1. Appeal allowed. The justices’ decisions were quashed and the matters remitted to a new bench for rehearing. The existing suspension or revocation and disqualification was continued until 1 February 2010 or further order.
2. Under sections 115, 116 and 121 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, the relevant conduct for a large goods vehicle licence is conduct as a driver of a motor vehicle. At the first stage, the decision-maker must determine whether that conduct makes the holder unfit. Personal circumstances are relevant only so far as they bear on the conduct itself, such as illness, emergency, momentary lapse or carelessness. Matters ordinarily relevant only to sentencing, such as loss of work or hardship, are not relevant at that stage.
3. The driver’s conduct must be assessed as a whole, good and bad, rather than by reference only to the conduct that caused the referral. The period of subsequent compliant driving may therefore be relevant to the fitness assessment.
4. The second stage under section 116(2) requires a separate judgment whether the conduct requires revocation and disqualification or only suspension. Personal circumstances and evidence that the driver is unlikely to offend again may be relevant at this stage. Deliberate and persistent disregard of driving responsibilities may justify revocation, but the consequence is not automatic.
5. Practice Direction 3 lawfully provided a starting point for consistency. Paragraph 23(b), read with paragraph 4, did not remove the Traffic Commissioner’s discretion to move up or down from the guideline. A mandatory interpretation would have been unlawful.
6. The justices were entitled to accept that the repeated falsifications were serious, despite many concealed journeys being short. However, they failed to demonstrate that they had assessed the appellants’ conduct as drivers in the round, particularly their clean regulatory records over approximately two years. Their uncritical reliance on the Traffic Commissioner’s decision and the guidance amounted to an error of law.
7. Costs were reserved for written submissions.

The appeals were brought by way of case stated from decisions of justices sitting at Camborne, West Cornwall. The justices had dismissed the appellants’ rehearing appeals against the Traffic Commissioner’s orders.

This court quashed the justices’ decisions and remitted the matters to a new bench of magistrates.