POLICE seized a van and its £5,000 load of alcohol after the driver was suspected of attempting to avoid paying excise duty.
The van was stopped for being overloaded during a routine road safety operation carried out by members of the Essex Police commercial vehicle unit at Thurrock on Thursday, January 3.
Officers found that vehicle, which was heading from east London to Suffolk, was overloaded by more than two tons. The driver was fined £600 for the offence.
Further investigation with HM Revenue and Customs found that the driver had twice before been stopped for attempting to avoid paying duty on alcohol. HMRC ordered that the vehicle and load should be automatically confiscated on their behalf for a third offence.
A Romanian lorry driver was ordered to take an enforced nine-hour break at Thurrock after failing to provide complete driving records for a load being carried from Spain to Cambridgeshire. He was also fined £200 for not having adequate records.
Thirty-six other driver hours’ offences were detected, two cars were seized for having no insurance, three vehicles were found to have no MOT and a lorry driver was fined £60 and given three penalty points for using a mobile telephone while driving.
The spot checks were carried out at Moto Services off the M25 and A13 at Thurrock under Operation Mermaid, the nationwide safety campaign to rid the roads of poorly-driven and badly-maintained commercial vehicles.
