V.I. Campbell & Others v Yates

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Judge: Fraser, J.A.
• Judgment Date: 20 September 1966
• Neutral Citation: TT 1966 CA 96
• Docket Number: No. 420 of 1966
• Court: Court of Appeal (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Date: 20 September 1966

Court of Appeal

Wooding, C.J.; McShine, J.A.; Fraser, J.A.

No. 420 of 1966

V.I. Campbell & Others

and

Yates

Appearances:

Mr. M. de la Bastide appeared for the appellant.

Mr. A. Warner, Acting Assistant Solicitor-General appeared for the respondent.

Criminal Law - Appeal against conviction — Keeping vehicle for use without a licence — Whether accused kept vehicle for use — Appellants were convicted for keeping a truck for use without having obtained a licence. Appealed against conviction. Argued inter alia that it cannot be said that they kept the vehicle for use — Evidence does not disclose that the appellants kept the vehicle for their own use — Appeal however dismissed because of other factors.

Criminal Law - Keeping vehicle for use without a licence — Appeal against conviction — Whether accused allowed vehicle to be kept for use — Appellants were convicted for keeping a truck for use without having obtained a licence — Appellants claimed that the truck was involved in a collision and was subsequently scrapped and sold — Therefore appealed against conviction and argued inter alia that they could not be held to have allowed the vehicle to be kept for use — Section 8 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Ordinance has provided that where a vehicle is destroyed or rendered permanently unserviceable the owner may take certain steps in order to relieve himself of the obligation to pay licence duty — If therefore the appellants wished to relieve themselves of the statutory obligations imposed on the registered owner of a vehicle, they ought to have notified the Licensing Authority in the manner prescribed by s. 8(2) of the Ordinance — This was not done — In the court's view therefore the truck, though not kept for use by the appellants it nevertheless allowed by the appellants to be kept for use.

Fraser, J.A.

1 On September 29 1964 Constable Harold Yates of the Licensing Office saw truck T.E. 3239 being driven in the direction of Port-of-Spain. He thereafter went to the Licensing Office and obtained a certified copy of the register of motor vehicles and on that register it appeared that the appellants were the registered owners of the vehicle. Having regarded therefore to the definition of “owner” in the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Ordinance, Ch.16, No.3, as amended by s.2 of Ordinance 47 of 1956, the appellants were prosecuted as the owners of the truck, being the registered owners on September 29, 1964. The appellants were convicted for keeping the truck for use without having obtained a licence.

2 At the hearing the appellants sought to establish that the vehicle had been...