Telford haulage firm boss banned from industry

Nick Denton, the region’s traffic commissioner, said the “irresponsibility” of Shaughan Genna meant that his firm, Masters Haulage, had operated in an “almost wholly non-compliant manner”.

The business, which was based in Telford, also lost its licence to operate heavy goods vehicles, following a public inquiry in Birmingham on July 18. Mr Genna failed to attend the inquiry.

Mr Denton additionally disqualified the firm’s former transport manager, Philip Haynes-Smith, from working in that role for an indefinite period.

The Traffic Commissioner found that Mr Haynes-Smith had completely failed to undertake his statutory duties as a transport manager for a number of years. Government inspectors reported that he had also committed numerous drivers’ hours offences – even though it was his responsibility to make sure the firm’s drivers were not breaking the rules.

In a written decision issued after the hearing, Mr Denton said: “Over a period of several years, Mr Genna ran the business without a functioning transport manager and in an almost wholly non-compliant manner.

“His irresponsibility, in failing to send vehicles for their periodic safety checks and in entirely ignoring the drivers’ hours rules and the multiple offences his drivers were committing, is of the gravest concern.”

The case came before the region’s regulator as a result of an investigation by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency in December 2016. Examiners from the agency reported a number of issues with vehicle and safety standards, including that vehicles operated by the firm were not being inspected every six weeks as required – on some occasions they were not checked for 16 weeks. The company had a prohibition rate, where vehicles are found with mechanical defects, of 67 per cent over two years, nearly 40 per cent higher than the national average. The MOT failure rate for the firm’s vehicles was 38 per cent over a two year period and over 12,000km of vehicle mileage could not be accounted for by the company.

There was no evidence that the business had been checking what records its drivers were keeping and whether they were committing offences.

The government inspectors also reported that Mr Haynes-Smith had become a full time driver and was therefore not fulfilling the role of transport manager. His knowledge of the drivers’ hours rules was criticised and he was identified as one of the worst offending drivers from an analysis of records.

Mr Haynes-Smith resigned from his post as transport manager in February 2017, following the liquidation of Masters Haulage.