Disqualification for scaffolder who falsified vehicle licence disc

A scaffolder has been disqualified from running vehicles for six months after the region’s Traffic Commissioner concluded he deserved to go out of business.

Nick Denton, Traffic Commissioner for London and the South East of England, said Stuart Pirie had defrauded the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), the taxpayer and put other road users in danger by knowingly using a seriously unroadworthy vehicle.

The industry regulator made an order to revoke Pirie’s licence, authorising the use of one vehicle, on September 15, 2016.
During a public inquiry in Eastbourne last month, the Traffic Commissioner heard that Pirie, who was trading as Pure Scaffolding in Mitcham, had:

· Falsified a vehicle disc by manually entering the expiry date to give the impression the disc was valid
· Operated a vehicle illegally
· Operated a vehicle without tax for seven and a half months
· Operated a vehicle in a dangerous condition, including with a bald tyre, a diesel leak and lacking an obligatory mirror
· Not conducted driver defect checks on his vehicle for two months
· Not ensured his vehicle was given a safety inspection at the stated interval

Some of the issues were reported under a previous licence which Pirie had operated as a partnership. That licence expired in December 2014.

“Instead of paying his continuation fee, he falsified the vehicle disc by manually altering the expiry date to 31 December 2016 so that the licence would outwardly appear to be valid,” said Denton. “This was a deliberate act of dishonesty which undermines the trust that a traffic commissioner ought to be able to have in an operator.”

The Traffic Commissioner imposed a disqualification of six months after Pirie admitted his poor conduct and appeared to be genuinely contrite about it.