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Haulage company under investigation for employing killer driverBarry Meyer (picture Metropolitan Police)

Haulage company under investigation for employing killer driver

Alan Drummond's haulage company licence in question after he employed uninsured and unlicensed killer driver...
by Sarah Barth
Sun, May 31, 2015 12:13
16

An investigation has begun into a haulage company whose unlicenced driver killed a cyclist in Central London two years ago.

Alan Neve, 54, was killed by Barry Meyer, 53, who drove over him in High Holborn as he cycled to work.

As we reported this month, Meyer was jailed for three and a half years and banned from driving for 10 years.

Barry Meyer, aged 53 and of Aubrey Road, E17, pleaded guilty in April to causing the death of cyclist Alan Neve in July 2013 by careless driving and driving while uninsured and unlicensed.

Last month, Blackfriars Crown Court heard that 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.

Sentencing him today, Judge Daniel Worsley told Meyer: "It's an understatement to say the impact of the harm you caused was devastating beyond all measure.”

The haulage company is now being investigated, and the Traffic Commissioner’s office said: “The Traffic Commissioner for London and the South East of England, Nick Denton, has invited the operator licence held by

Alan Drummond to a preliminary hearing next month, following receipt of information from Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police Service.

“The purpose of the preliminary hearing is to establish what areas of compliance will need to be examined at a formal public inquiry and what documents and other evidence the operator and his transport manager will need to bring to that inquiry.

“Following the preliminary hearing, the operator licence held by Alan Drummond will be called to a public inquiry.

"This inquiry will examine the findings of an investigation by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).

“Due to ongoing proceedings, the Traffic Commissioner cannot make any further comment on this case.”

The London Cycling Campaign has called for the Traffic Commissioner to revoke Mr Drummond’s licence to operate, with a hearing due next week.

A statement from the LCC said: “It appears that Meyer was allowed to drive a 32-tonne tipper lorry by the operator who had either not properly checked that he had a valid licence or if a check was made which had allowed Mr Meyer to drive without a licence.”

At the original hearing, the judge told Meyer that he had a “shocking driving history,” with the lorry driver only changing his plea once the judge said that his past record would be disclosed to the jury.

After the sentence was handed down, Detective Sergeant Cheryl Frost, of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Roads and Transport Policing Command, said: "I would like to express my gratitude to the family of Alan Neve.

“They have carried themselves with the utmost dignity throughout this process which has lasted almost two years. It has been an extremely difficult time for them but their desire to assist us and support this investigation is testament to their strength."

In a statement, Mr Neve’s family said: “Alan was a kind, loving, optimistic, law-abiding man who had many years of life ahead of him.

“It was his great misfortune to travel the same route as Mr Meyer on Monday 15th July 2013.

“Many people have been deeply affected by Alan's death. We are relieved that there has finally been an end to this process and that there is some sense of justice for Alan.

“Alan will never ever be forgotten.”
 

Barry Meyer
Alan Neve
Holborn
cyclist death
jail sentence

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16 comments

Avatar
atgni | 9 years ago
0 likes

Admin - why can't I edit (delete) my inaccurate comment?
Can you remove it please.
31st May 2015 - 23:33

Avatar
AJ101 | 9 years ago
0 likes

Here's what I don't understand, there's this big appetite at the moment for border control squads to go round various restaurants looking for illegal workers, taking them away and then fining the bosses up to £20k.

Why don't they have teams that go round haulage firms checking the paperwork and inspecting the lorries? Given that roadside checks show so many lorries to be in breach of the regulations why don't aren't there teams that go round and do spot checks at haulage firms?

Avatar
A V Lowe | 9 years ago
0 likes

I'd suggest that those reading this (and Road CC) might like to look up OK1133972 SN (A&D issue 3922) and note the operators surname, location of registered office, and location of operating base.

They might also note the change of operating base for OK1046680 (NOT OB1083502 as incorrectly posted by previous poster) per A&D 3899 applied for in August 2013 (one month after the fatal crash) and that the vehicle involved (vanity plate S77 DHL) was recently noted SORN.

The whole issue had string parallels with the history of OH1096328, including the application for a change of operating base around 1 month after a serious fatal crash, but with some curious baggage relating to OH1028238. I'd recommend Western TAO A&D Nos 5294, 5325, and 5379 (1 month after double fatality).

Work is ongoing to prepare material on this case, where CPSUK and others were open mouthed at D&C Police not prepared to pursue case against operator.

Given the relatively small number of fatal crashes (25-30 for the TAO London & SE) the has to be a clear case for the Police to formally record this with DVSA (and TAO) and for the Commissioner to record each fatality in A&D with details of the O Licence holder and TM, and (within 28 days?) determine any requirement to call in the operator for an interview to review their role in providing the means by which the killing was delivered by their driver and vehicle, with a view to preventing future harm.

Those minded to do so might try to get recent and forthcoming copies of Commercial Vehicle Engineer where this is becoming a topic of the letters page and editorial. They might also consider how they can lobby on the findings of the PACTS report on transport safety (published 25/3/15), and directly to the OTC (senior commissioner - Beverley Bell) on how their limited resources might be enhanced, or redirected to tackle this issue

Avatar
atgni | 9 years ago
0 likes

from gov.uk search site - http://www.tan.gov.uk/tanen/vosa_anonymousoperatorsearchresults_new.asp

Operator Licence number Licence status Continuation Date
ALAN DRUMMOND OB0209255 (SN) Surrendered 31/05/2009
ALAN DRUMMOND OB1082638 (SN) Withdrawn
ALAN DRUMMOND OB1083502 (SN) Valid 30/09/2018

Avatar
A V Lowe replied to atgni | 9 years ago
0 likes

See my post following yours - please check your sources properly - and use the VOSA public search facility - I suspect that Alan Drummond (on a farm near Northallerton) is NOT Alan John Drummond (of Canning Town E16, operating from River Road Barking IG11)

Avatar
paul-ldn | 9 years ago
0 likes

Looking at this site http://haulage-index.co.uk/hauliers/view/17138 it may, or may not be, that the operator is a single licence holder based at a small farm-holding.

So it is best to wait and see what the investigation throws up as the question I have is whether or not this process failure can happen for any other heavy goods driver, their operator licence holder or the ultimate contracting organisation.

If Barry Meyer was a sub-sub-contractor then cyclists should want to hear from Nick Denton who was at the top of the hiring hierarchy of Barry Meyer!

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DuncanMc | 9 years ago
0 likes

If he does loose the license to operate it begs the question why has it taken 2 years for the commissioner to bring the company in to court?
AND
Has he already made provision for this action by setting up a front company?
Just is a dish served luke warm and a bit crusty.

Avatar
don simon fbpe | 9 years ago
0 likes

The tide is turning.

Avatar
severs1966 replied to don simon fbpe | 9 years ago
0 likes
don simon wrote:

The tide is turning.

No it isn't.

The police still do not care if a person on a bike lives or dies at the hand of an unlicensed driver.

More bike riders will be killed by HGVs, whose drivers and operators will go unpunished, or only very lightly punished.

Many HGVs will continue to be operated at an insufficiently safe standard, uninspected by the police or any other authorised body; many drivers of such vehicles will be using phones as they kill pedestrians and bike riders, and many will have no suitable licence.

"Safety crackdowns" will continue to ignore these lethal leviathans while giving stern talking-tos to bike riders for not wearing the helmets that the law does not require, or the hi-viz jackets that the law does not require.

Crushed bike riders being loaded into ambulances will continue to be humiliated and abused by police officers ("get out of the road, you are holding the traffic up"... "you went and got yourself run over didn't you"... "no, you can't report it now, and I can't record any details now, you must attend a police station personally and make a statement before any investigation can begin").

Drivers of both cars and lorries will, in alternation as they pass too close, scream either "get on the pavement" or "get off the pavement", depending on which violation of their fantasy road rules the bike rider of the moment is "violating".

The tide is not turning. The authorities DO NOT CARE about your life.

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Flying Scot | 9 years ago
0 likes

Driver banned for life, and unless the operator can prove a complex fraud in the licence that they had no way of checking, then get their licence pulled too.

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Dutchie | 9 years ago
0 likes

Yep, that sounds about right Housecathst...

On another note: why is the driver banned for 10 years and not for life? "had been banned from driving five times and had two previous convictions for drunk driving" so clearly unfit to be on the road. And as not having a license doesn't seem to stop him from getting behind the wheel, he may need to be locked up for life before anyone else gets killed.

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severs1966 | 9 years ago
0 likes

Simply allowing an unlicensed person to get in your company's 32-tonne lorry and drive off should be enough to have the operator licence revoked.

Allowing that person to do so, and go out and kill using the lorry, should attract an arrest on a charge of accessory to manslaughter.

Corporate Manslaughter might also be a suitable arrestable offence, if the police cared about stopping the killing; but they don't care.

But no individual will be punished. A piece of paper will be revoked, the lorries will be sold to a new holding company operated by all the same people, and the killing will continue as before.

The lorries should be seized as part of the punishment for an offence that nobody in any position of authority actually, in reality, gives the first shit about.

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Housecathst | 9 years ago
0 likes

I hope this company is driven out of business.

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ianrobo | 9 years ago
0 likes

Is there any reason the haulage company is not being named ?

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kwi replied to ianrobo | 9 years ago
0 likes
ianrobo wrote:

Is there any reason the haulage company is not being named ?

The operators name is there.

Avatar
atgni | 9 years ago
0 likes

Good.

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