Emily Green, trading as Emily Jayne Green, applied for a standard national goods vehicle operator’s licence for two vehicles on 27 April 2021.
Bank statements supplied by Ms Green in support of her application showed weekly payments from skip hire firm Walsall-based Viking Skips (which has no relation to Viking Skips Ltd, a company based in Essex), traffic commissioner Nicholas Denton said in a decision published on 14 September.
Mr Denton said Viking Skips was operated by Barry Taylor, Ms Green’s father Neil, and her brother Carl over a “lengthy period” in a “non-compliant manner where the partners demonstrated wholesale contempt for the law”.
Mr Denton said Mr Taylor, in whose name Viking Skips’ licence had been, had operated four vehicles rather than the authorised two, failed to give the vehicles any kind of safety inspection beyond that at MOT, and operated a vehicle with false number plates, among other issues.
There were also possible links between Emily Green and two previous applications which had been refused, Mr Denton said.
He said: “Ms Green is only in a position to operate a skip business because the vehicles are to be given or lent to her by Neil Green and/or Barry Taylor.”
Mr Denton refused Ms Green a licence as he could not find that there was “the necessary good repute behind this application”.
Letsrecycle.com contacted Viking Skips for comment.
‘Sins of a parent’
Mr Denton said he was “essentially being invited” to agree to the continuation of the Viking Skips business. He added that Neil Green was “frank” enough to admit this.
One must be wary of visiting the sins of a parent upon their children. But Emily Green is an employee of the Viking Skips business– Traffic commissioner Nicholas Denton
As part of his decision, Mr Denton said: “One must be wary of visiting the sins of a parent upon their children. But Emily Green is an employee of the Viking Skips business and is only in a position to apply to operate vehicles because the Viking vehicles have been put at her disposal. I do not find that she has a mind or resources independent from those of Neil Green.”
He added: “If I were to grant this application, the message it would send out to other operators and the public would be that it does not greatly matter if you ignore all the rules relating to the safe driving and operating of vehicles: if your licence is revoked you can always put up a close family member to apply for a licence in your stead.”
One factor “to Ms Green’s credit”, Mr Denton said, was that she is taking the transport manager CPC exam in “a few days’ time”.
He said that, if she passed, he could accept her as transport manager on a different licence in the future.
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