A member of a family whose haulage firm was banned from the road has failed in a bid to resurrect the company.
Roderick Munro wanted to relaunch the transport business after it was struck off by Scotland’s traffic commissioner, Joan Aitken.
The company, based at Alness in Ross-shire, was stopped from operating after a 30-tonne tractor shovel rolled off one of its lorries into the path of an oncoming car, killing a young beautician.
One of its vehicles was also involved in an accident that left Highland Council’s former head of roads, Iain Wallace, seriously injured after a trailer broke free from a moving truck and hit his car in November 2008.
The beautician’s family welcomed the commissioner’s decision last night and claimed the roads were now safer without the Munro family operating a haulage firm.
Ms Aitken disqualified owner and director William Munro and his director brother, David, from holding a goods vehicle operator’s licence for seven years, and William’s daughter, Pamela, who was also a director, for two years.
Majority shareholder William Munro’s son, Roderick, 32, applied to the commissioner for a licence to operate six vehicles and six trailers from the same company depot at Alness Industrial Estate and under the same name of Munro and Sons.
However, the commissioner said in her written reasons for rejecting the application that she did not trust the applicant
Ms Aitken said: “I find I cannot be satisfied with the repute of the applicants. Repute requires a degree of trust. I do not trust Roderick Munro.
“If I were to grant this application, there would be a real risk to public confidence in the goods-vehicle operator licensing regime.
“For the message it would give would be that a revoked and disqualified person need not worry, for all they have to do is to put a close family member up to apply for a licence.”
The commissioner also found that “the family connections and the context in which this application is made” were significant.
Christina Fraser, 24, of Arabella, Tain, died in the accident involving the tractor shovel on the A9 Inverness-Thurso road in Ross-shire on July 5, 2006.
She was a passenger in the car hit by the tractor shovel.
Miss Fraser’s father, Hugh, of Argyle Court, Tain, said last night that Ms Aitken had made the right decision.
“It was disgusting and unacceptable that the Munro family had looked to operate vehicles again,” he said.
“We support the commissioner’s decision. It is right and it makes the roads a much safer place.
“Both Roderick and his father, William, have shown no remorse whatsoever for the death of my daughter, when Munro and Sons was culpable for it.
“The carnage, injury and tragedy they have caused is terrible and Roderick Munro was trying to do this through the back door, but he has been found out by the commissioner.”
A sheriff ruled last month that the fatal accident could have been avoided.
During a lengthy inquiry into Miss Fraser’s death, Sheriff David Sutherland heard evidence that the tractor shovel had been restrained by half the chains required for a vehicle of its weight. It also had a faulty parking brake.
Munro and Sons was fined £30,000 previously at the High Court in Edinburgh after admitting breaches of health-and-safety legislation by failing to provide suitable equipment for the securing of a heavy load.
Low-loader driver William MacLennan also admitted breaking health-and-safety rules but was admonished.
During the public inquiry into Roderick Munro’s application, held in Inverness earlier this month, Ms Aitken said she could not believe that William Munro could “not get” his company’s part in the death and accidents.
She reiterated this point in her decision and also stated that, when she revoked the company’s operating licence in May last year, she did so “against the most tragic of backgrounds and against a very bad operating history”.
Roderick Munro attempted to distance himself from the accident and the business’s poor track record by claiming that he was of “a different breed” from his father, uncle and sister.
Mr Munro has been involved with construction firms in Derbyshire for nine years and set up his own firm, Munro Midlands, with his wife, Claire, in 2007.
He told the commissioner during the public inquiry that he would become the sole director of Munro and Sons if he got the licence for his own company, and that his 67-year-old father was retiring because of ill health.
Ms Aitken believed his father’s influence would be felt, despite assurances from Roderick Munro that he would not employ any staff involved in Munro and Sons when the fatal accident occurred.
Mr Munro said: “We are obviously disappointed by the traffic commissioner’s decision but not surprised in view of her statement during the public inquiry that she was not unbiased. We will be appealing the decision.”