Freight operators Alan and Colin Drummond have been barred from running or managing trucks after one of their vehicles, driven by Barry Meyer, killed cyclist Alan Neve in July 2013.
Traffic Commissioner for London Nick Denton said that Alan and Colin Drummond indirectly caused the death of Alan Neve "by their own failure to fulfil one of the most basic responsibilities of an operator or transport manager – to ensure that a driver of one of their HGVs was qualified to drive it".
Meyer was jailed for three and a half years on May 14 for causing the death of Alan Neve in July 2013 by careless driving and driving while uninsured and unlicensed.
Meyer, who had been banned from driving five times and had two previous convictions for drunk driving, had jumped a red light as he tried to keep up with a colleague driving another truck in front of him.
In sentencing Meyer, Judge Daniel Worsley said the driver had "a sustained history of driving offences showing wretched disregard for the safety of road users."
Barry Meyer was driving the AJ Drummond truck that killed Alan Neve
At the original hearing, he told Meyer that he had a “shocking driving history”. The lorry driver only changed his plea once the judge said that his past record would be disclosed to the jury.
The company Meyer was driving for, AJ Drummond, was investigated by the Traffic Commissioner after Meyer had been sentenced.
Alan John Drummond and Colin Drummond were invited to a preliminary hearing on June 5, and to a public inquiry before the Traffic Commissioner on June 24, but failed to attend both hearings.
In a written statement Nick Denton explained that both transport managers had lost their good repute and both were disqualified with immediate effect and for an indefinite period of time.
Alan Drummond was disqualified from holding or obtaining any type of operator’s licence in any traffic area, or being the director of any company holding or obtaining such as licence.
Colin Drummond was disqualified from acting as a transport manager on any operator’s licence in any member state of the EU. Before he can act as a transport manager again he must appear before the Traffic Commissioner at a hearing in order to re-establish his repute.
The Commissioner went on to say in his written statement: "From the police evidence I have seen, which includes a transcript of an interview with Alan Drummond, I find that the operator wrongly took on trust Barry Meyer’s assurance that he possessed the correct driving entitlement and never bothered to check whether this was really so, even after Mr Meyer had “forgotten” to bring in his licence for checking, something which should have set off alarm bells.
"I find that, through their negligence, Alan and Colin Drummond allowed a person to drive a Heavy Goods Vehicle who should clearly not have been allowed to do so. The results were fatal.
"Both Alan and Colin Drummond have serious questions to answer about what system for checking driver entitlement they were operating at the time of Mr Meyer’s employment and about why that system, if they had one, failed.
"Instead, they have sought to evade their responsibilities by refusing to speak to DVSA examiners and refusing to attend the preliminary hearing and public inquiry.
"I note that the wish to surrender the licence (Alan Drummond) and the unbearable burden of other responsibilities (Colin Drummond) have both suddenly emerged in the last few weeks, after they received the call-up letters to the preliminary hearing and public inquiry.
"By contrast, they have had no apparent difficulty in continuing to operate over the past two years, since the fatality caused by Mr Meyer (and, indirectly, by their own failure to fulfil one of the most basic responsibilities of an operator or transport manager – to ensure that a driver of one of their HGVs was qualified to drive it).
"Four vehicles were operated by Mr Drummond right up to 6 May 2015, with the last vehicle being removed from the licence on 17 May 2015.
"Because neither man has attended the public inquiry today, they have been unable to present any mitigating factors which might argue against revocation of the licence and the disqualification of its holder and transport manager.
"My conclusion is that this licence must therefore be revoked and that the good repute of both Alan and Colin Drummond cannot survive such a basic failure to carry out their responsibilities as operator and transport manager and their refusal to be called to account."
The Drummond saga may not end there. According to the cycling charity CTC, in November 2014, a Hayley Caroline Drummond applied to set up a new operator, HCD London, based at an address near to that of AJ Drummond, which was granted in March 2015. CTC has alerted the Traffic Commissioner, so that he can investigate whether they are linked.
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22 comments
To GrahamSt
Many thanks for the positive feedback - much appreciated.
Let me also say that CTC wouldn't be able to do what we do without the support of people like yourself.
I should perhaps explain that I made a couple of small edits to my posting, which mean that it is now out of sequence from where it appeared originally. So GrahamSt's message needs to be read as a response to my own posting above, even though they no longer appear in that order.
Roger Geffen
Campaigns & Policy Director, CTC
Good. but not good enough.
Both the driver and operator should be charged with Manslaughter, and Conspiracy To Defraud.
and for the ultimate contracting companies to be held to account - suspect that these are very large companies and have a moral if not legal obligation to manage their sub contract network not just demand "on time, lowest price" time the HSE backed off from the political pressure of reducing red tape and used its Executive powers to actively pursue the causes of what are work place related deaths caused by commercial activities in public places
And that right there ^^^ is why I am a CTC member.
Thank you Roger.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/membership
What is the betting Mrs Drummond is a company director of a firm by now, nothing to do with her husband of course
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/09181650/HCD-LONDON-LTD/directors-secr...
Comments do far show the weakness of a vital requirement to regulate the commercial use of the road. Nick Denton has publicly stated that he can only do around 300 formal inquiries with the potential workload running to thousands of referrals.
Even when he does hold an operator to account his decisions can be appealed and action frustrated by potentially devious moves which HCD London gives every sign of being. Their trucks go in to a site on River Road, which has the same postcode as the former operation, but no name appears at the road end and the lease on the land is with another company - 8 other current operators give this as their operating base address.
This isn't the only operator whose history calls for greater scrutiny, and brings a call to campaign for the operator (who provided the truck & driver which was part of the fatal crash) is also identified in any reports.
A notification should be automatically made to the Traffic Commissioner and formally recorded, that the role of the operator in the fatal crash will be reviewed and information received from the Police, DVSA and other agencies, and a timeous decision made to call in the operator if there is any question of poor operationbeing a key factor in the fatal crash.
We should not have to rely on individuals taking on the case, and pressing for action, and a 2 year wait to bring the individuals in to a hearing.
We might start by appealing to get details of who the operators are for 2 of the 2015 deaths in London, starting with B8 LWT the truck in the Bank crash, with its non standard vinyls on rather poor taste. The other vehicle is the recycling skip truck (Amhurst Park), the others are known, although for the retail food delivery there may be a sub contracted operator for the company whose name is on the truck.
So basically the punishment is that they're not allowed to put their name on a bit of paper. As we can all see, they're putting their wife's names instead.
That mild inconvenience will teach them a firm lesson.
One part of me is saying well done Mr. Denton, but another part is saying why aren't they facing a jail sentence. Also why have the four vehicles that they were "operating" not been confiscated as others have said, another company will appear fronted by one of the other caravan dwellers/family members and it will be buisness as usual with yet more fatalities
DanThomasCyclist is right that, although Alan and Colin Drummond have lost their rights to operate a lorry business, neither of them have had to give any kind of account of themselves to a court, nor face the possibility of criminal sanctions.
Similarly, Monty Dog and Gazza_D both ask about the possibility of corporate manslaughter charges. As far as we can tell, Alan Drummond wasn't a corporation, so that almost certainly wouldn't be possible. Gross negligence manslaughter might be a possible charge though, or there are other options under Health and Safety law.
Suffice to say that we are looking at whether more could and should be done to bring Alan and/or Colin Drummond to account in criminal law.
Similarly, CTC is also looking at whether more could and should be done about the lorry operator who's driver killed Andrew McMenigall and Toby Wallace in Cornwall, soon after they had set off on a Lands End to John O'Groats charity ride - see http://www.ctc.org.uk/blog/rhiaweston/lorry-driver-sentenced-spotlight-n.... The driver had been working illegally long hours repairing lorries as well as driving them. Moreover, after killing McMenigall and Wallace, he was involved in a second collision before the case came to trial.
The operator was Frys Logistics. Arthur Charles Fry had come to the Traffic Commissioners' attention once before, causing his previous firm (A C Fry Transport) to loose its operators' licence in 2010. When a subsequent application was made to set up Frys Logistics with A C Fry as its transport manager, the Traffic Commissioner specifically excluded him from playing any role in managing the business. Its transport manager is now Mark Fry.
Like Alan Drummond, Frys Logistics made an application to move its operating base within weeks of the fatal collision (ironically these applications were made two days apart, but in different Traffic Commisssioners' regions).
More recently though, Mark Fry was fined by Bodmin magistrates for himself working illegally long hours, and for failures to document vehicle safety checks. These offences were picked up as part of a Traffic Commissioner's investigation launched in the wake of the deaths of McMenigall and Wallace (see http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/Mark-Fry-31-Frys-Logistics-Launceston-f...). However, the Traffic Commissioners have taken no action against him or Frys Logistics in relation to their deaths.
The whole situation highlights the need for lorry operators (not just the drivers) to be held to account when their vehicles are involved in fatal or serious collisions. For more on this, see http://www.ctc.org.uk/news/20150608-reining-rogue-goods-vehicle-operators.
Of course, fatalities can sometimes involve a fully-reputable safety-conscious operator, and the process should be even-handed to reflect this. However it is unacceptable that Alan Drummond was able to carry on operating for 2 years after Alan Neve's death, till the identity of the operator became apparent after the convicted driver was found to have been driving without a licence. Only then was the London Traffic Commissioner (Nick Denton) even notified.
Denton has since done his job very diligently. However CTC believes there needs to be a much better process for alerting the TC's of lorry operators involved in fatal and serious collisions - and to make public the information which organisations who offer contracts for lorry services (e.g. supermarkets) to avoid operators with poor safety records.
They should be put up against a wall and shot. Period.
Why not charge with corporate manslaughter? Surely the failure of responsibility actually falls that far?
I imagine its incredibly hard to get a corporate manslaughter charge, and the sentencing isn't necessarily what you might imagine. Search for Mobile Sweeper Reading for an example - found guilty but only given an £8000 fine.
Probably much more effective to send in the HSE. In the case above the HSE fined the company director nearly £200,000 for safety breaches, 25 times as much as the manslaughter sentence.
I've always thought that all freight operators should be subject to HSE regulation while out on public roads, and any injury caused by a freight operator on the public roads should automatically be investigated by the HSE. Obviously this would cost money, but overall the savings to the country would be huge and it would rid the roads of the cowboy operators.
To be fair, according to wikipedia there have so far been twelve convictions under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 with fines up to £500,000. The £8000 Mobile Sweepers fine seems to be a bit of an outlier.
IANAL, but I suspect the issue is whether the freight company have a "relevant duty of care" to the general public. You would hope they should, but legalities are rarely that simple. Section 2 of the Act defines "relevant duty of care", but it seems to focus on employees and people in custody/care.
Agreed. HGVs and other large vehicles are subject to HSE while they are on a work site, so they limit speed and often use Banksmen on foot to allow them to manoeuvre safely.
But as soon as they leave the gates that disappears and they can freely mix with busy city traffic, cyclists and pedestrians. That seems a bit crazy. Surely they should be required to take as much care around the public as they take around employees?
Exactly this! Define the working environment as the public highway and extend the duty of care to the public, not just employees. That would give HSE the necessary power.
This goes far beyond this case, the great and the good of this country have ensured that the Corporate Manslaughter laws of effectively unenforceable, because it might come back on them.
A quick director search shows there are yet more Drummonds at the same address that have also been directors of recently closed down transport companies along with Colin. Maybe more Drummonds for the Traffic Commissioner to check for links.
It's good to see these people are being banned form running a company, though as pointed out in another post that might not stop them.
There is a minority of haulage firms that have very poor safety records and account for a very large number of crashes.
I hope it comes as some comfort to the family of the deceased that these idiots are being prevented from running such a cowboy operation again. I hope the police keep a close watch on any activities these people are involved in.
...and when do we get to see the corporate manslaughter charges?
This is the result of a hard fought 2 year battle by campaigners. Well done to them.
What's the betting that officially these scum bags won't have anything to do with the new company, but we all know they'll be the one's operating it whilst Ms Drummond is out shopping, getting her hair done, and topping up on the shade of orange she's undoubtedly is partial to.
So they weren't incompetent, they were just scrotebags who didn't give a flying one. Shame they couldn't be put away.