A HAULIER has been sentenced for offences which came to light after one of his drivers was killed in a crash.
Keith Brown, 55, who ran Castleford-based Keith Brown Transport, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to 11 charges of breaking rules involving drivers' working hours.
Magistrates at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk ordered Brown, of Edendale, Castleford, to undertake a 240- hour community punishment order.
He must also pay £55 prosecution costs.
The charges followed a police investigation into a crash in which Paul Takvam, 59, of Jenny Lane, Mirfield, died early on December 11 last year.
Mr Takvam had been at the wheel of an articulated lorry when it plunged 40ft down an embankment from the A14 at Kentford, near Newmarket, Suffolk on to a minor road.
He was declared dead at the scene.
An inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death on Mr Takvam.
The coroner said he had probably fallen asleep at the wheel.
Outside the court, Mr Takvam's widow, Joyce, said she regretted that her husband could not have been present to give his account of what had happened.
She said her family had been left with a life sentence.
In court, prosecutor Paul Forshaw said: "This is a dramatic illustration of what happens when drivers are exhausted."
Checks carried out by a tachograph expert showed that many of the records kept by Mr Takvam had been tampered with, to allow more driving to take place than was legally permissible.
A police investigation after the crash showed that Mr Takvam had tampered with tachograph records in the cab of the lorry, to make it seem that he had only been driving for a short time.
Murray Oliver, for Brown, told the court that the illegal hours being driven by Mr Takvam had resulted in no cash benefit for Brown, who was paid a fixed price for the work he undertook for a shipping company.
Poor management by Brown had resulted in the offences being committed.
He had now sold his fleet of lorries and surrendered his operator's licence.
He was no longer involved in the transport business.
