Graham William O’Halloran (27), of Brooklyn Street, was told by the Magistrate, Bridget Shaw, that he had put his passenger at risk as
there was no place for him to sit and he was riding alongside a large, unsecured roll of carpet.
She said that the matter was made worse by the fact that the van was in regular use, but that the insurance had expired in August.
However, despite his actions being described by Mrs Shaw as ‘highly negligent’,
O’Halloran escaped a driving ban.
He was sentenced to 90 hours of community service, fined £1,000 and had his licence endorsed.
He pleaded guilty to driving an uninsured van with a dangerous load on Rue du Côtil in St Ouen on 30 August.
The court heard that O’Halloran’s Ford Transit was stopped in a joint DVS/St Ouen honorary police road check and a man
was seen getting out of the vehicle’s rear door. Inside, inspectors found a large roll of carpet that was not properly secured.
In addition, the windscreen insurance disc was out of date, having expired on 20 August. Subsequently O’Halloran admitted that the vehicle was not insured.
Advocate Guillaume Staal, defending, said that not renewing the insurance had been an ‘oversight’ on the part of the defendant.
However, Mrs Shaw said: ‘He can’t see out of the passenger window and he puts
someone at risk by carrying them in the back. These are not oversights, they are decisions.
‘I think this is highly negligent and this was a business he was running.’
