Scotland’s Traffic Commissioner has disqualified the directors of waste operator Doonin Plant Ltd from holding or obtaining an operator's licence with immediate effect.

Gary Doonin, Thomas Doonin and Robert Forrest were previously fined £200,000 for environmental offences in 2012, the largest ever ‘cumulative financial penalty’ issued for an ‘environmental offence reported to the Procurator Fiscal by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA)’.

The offences related to the fact that the directors were keeping controlled waste in ‘a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health and keeping controlled waste without a management licence’.

Now the directors and their firm, which had bases on New Road, Cambuslang and Rutherglen Industrial Estate in Glasgow, Traffic Commissioner, Joan Aitken has disqualified the men from ever holding or obtaining an operator’s licence.

Public inquiry

The latest decision came after a public inquiry held on 14 August 2014 in Edinburgh. The inquiry heard that the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (VOSA) had discovered four safety critical prohibition notices that had been issued to vehicles operated by Doonin Plant Ltd between September 2011 and August 2012.

The notices related to tyre and wheel defects that showed drivers were not undertaking daily safety checks on vehicles.

Previous investigations in 2011 and 2007 by the DVSA had also reported issues with vehicle maintenance, while one of the company’s vehicles had been stopped in January 2012 and was illegally displaying an operator licence disc belonging to Robert Forrest and Margaret Allan, whose licence had been terminated in 2011.

It was also noted that Doonin Plant Ltd had not notified the Traffic Commissioner’s office of its previous convictions, as required.

“Criminal disregard for the environment and safe handling of waste”

Aitken said: “There is a history here of analogous offending and of criminal disregard for the protection of the environment and safe handling of waste.

“The evidence indicated that the products of waste would be likely to find their way into the surrounding land and groundwater causing harm to the environment.

“Lorries were at the heart of this criminality on the part of Doonin Plant Ltd and Mr Gary Doonin. Without lorries - and from the opinion of the court

it is clear that Doonin lorries were being seen - this offending could not happen.”

She concluded: “I am in no doubt that this is an operator which must be put out of goods vehicle operating forever.”

Aitken also warned that any “proxies or puppets” acting on behalf of Mr Doonin would be caught by the regulatory system.

Read about the record fine for Doonin Plant Ltd.