Episode 2 Fake Britain


Episode 2

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Transcript


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Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

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Welcome to Fake Britain.

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Get down! Get down!

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Get your hands behind your back now!

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It's just an ordinary house - it could be anywhere in the country,

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but this is the Fake Britain house, and it's filled with fakes.

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You may not know it, but your home could be too.

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In this series, we'll be investigating the criminals,

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trying to get their hands on your cash,

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by using fraud, forgeries and fakery.

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And I'll be showing you how you can avoid being taken for a ride.

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Today, on Fake Britain -

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lorry drivers faking their working hours records...

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Hello, it's the police. Can you open it up, please?

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The driver had been on duty for some 111 hours, 44 minutes.

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..and the devastating effect this illegal tampering

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can have on innocent road users.

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The dangers are astronomical and, in some ways,

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these are ticking time bombs on our roads.

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Who can you trust to book your travel?

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We hear how a family of 11 fell victim to fake holiday tickets.

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I stood there thinking, "It's not happening. It's not happening to me."

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This is a tachograph - there's one

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in every lorry on Britain's roads,

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and it produces a written record like this,

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with details of every journey the vehicle takes.

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This can be checked to make sure that the driver

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isn't driving too fast, or for too long.

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The system is designed to make Britain's roads safer.

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But what happens if this has been tampered with, making this a fake?

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Essex, 1pm.

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Police and Vehicle Agency officers

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are carrying out a stop-check operation

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on lorry drivers, to see if their vehicles and records are legitimate.

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Traffic officer PC Alastair Cuthbertson's heading to

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a vehicle check site, where officers have stopped a driver

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that they suspect has been faking his tachograph chart.

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We're en route up to the weighbridge site,

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and my colleagues at VOSA, the Vehicle Operator Service Agency,

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have stopped a Portuguese-registered vehicle,

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and, on checking, they found that his driver's hours are false -

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they're fake records.

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These fake records can't be checked, or verified,

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as showing if he's at rest, is he actually at rest?

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And, um, as a result,

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we'll have a chat with him and see what we get from that.

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The South East of England

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is a thoroughfare for truck drivers from overseas,

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but all must abide by EU laws when it comes to how many hours

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they can drive and when their rest periods should be taken.

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It seems one driver's got a total lack of respect for the law.

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They've asked me to come up here and help them deal with it,

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which is what we're going to do.

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Tachographs were introduced in the late '70s,

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to cap drivers' working hours, in a bid to make Britain's roads safer.

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Lorry drivers can operate up to nine hours a day,

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with a maximum of 56 hours a week, or 90 hours a fortnight.

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But fraudsters have developed ways to manipulate

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the tachograph recording device, to fake the charts - an offence that

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can carry a punishment of a £5,000 fine and up to two years in prison.

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Habla Ingles? Habla espanol?

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Espanol.

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Espanol. Me poquito espanol.

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OK? Muchos problemas.

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-No.

-Si. Si.

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The Portuguese driver may be denying faking his tachograph,

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but officers back at base have seen photos from police cameras

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that show the lorry was moving,

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even though his tachograph chart shows it was at rest.

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Basically, you're driving your truck - 13:16, you weren't asleep.

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Not resting.

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OK? Dartford Tunnel - again, we have a photograph of this, of you driving.

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Yeah?

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INADUDIBLE

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You were driving in Epping, and you weren't recording your driving.

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Fabricado...

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The records are fake. Not the truth. Yeah?

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Alastair suspects the Portuguese driver has used

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one of the more basic methods to fake his tachograph,

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which requires a simple bar magnet.

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To enable the records to be faked, you put a magnet on what is

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the gearbox sending unit.

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It sends the impulses up to the tachograph unit in the cab.

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By using a bar magnet,

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the driver can put the tachograph unit to sleep,

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which will stop his hours from being recorded

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and start creating a fake tachograph chart,

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which could pocket the driver and his company

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more cash by keeping the lorry on the road around the clock.

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Hello?

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Convinced the driver's adopting this method, Alastair's hoping

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the driver's boss will be able to persuade him to come clean.

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I don't want to make life difficult,

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but I would like him to give me the magnet, yeah? OK?

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Why don't you speak to your driver now and explain the situation,

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and you tell him what I want, please?

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I'd like honesty.

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After a quick chat, the driver finally sees sense.

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OK. Muchas gracias.

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Here we go - this is the magnet that he's used to make his records fake.

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He's now surrendered it, on his company's instructions.

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It's just a simple block magnet, quite strong,

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and that will clamp on and stop the records being correct,

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make fake records by using a magnet.

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With the magnet safely in custody,

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Alastair's stopped this illegal driver in his tracks.

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On this occasion, he's going to issue a warning and a fine,

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but more prolific fakers have ended up in prison.

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Clamping down on drivers faking their tachograph records

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is now a priority for Essex Police,

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after it witnessed one of the worst lorry crashes in recent years.

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It involved an exhausted driver,

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who'd been behind the wheel for one and a half times the legal limit.

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And that was one of the most complex scenes

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that I've ever arrived at - four goods vehicles,

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six cars. We didn't know how many people were injured at the time.

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It's a day Keith Mouthton, from Ilford in East London,

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will never be able to forget.

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On that Friday, my dad was driving the car,

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so I was in the passenger seat.

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We was coming off at the Lakeside turnoff, and there was a queue

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of traffic getting off of the motorway, onto that junction.

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And the only thing I can remember

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was being violently shook to one side.

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And then I see what I thought was a trailer coming towards me,

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and then I blacked out.

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From that moment on, I don't really remember

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too much about it, to be honest.

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The CCTV caught the details of what Anton Maizen,

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a driver from Germany, had done behind the wheel.

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Investigators found he'd failed to apply his brakes,

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as his lorry ploughed into the back of stationary traffic

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at a speed of 56 miles per hour.

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He'd left Germany the previous day,

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and had covered 840 miles over the last 23 hours,

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with the previous 15 spent behind the wheel.

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Many of us are drivers,

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and we can only imagine driving 800 miles in one 24-hour period.

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We would know that we were fighting the effects of sleep,

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and that we're endangering ourselves and everybody else around us.

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My dad was laying on my side, and cos I couldn't move,

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he was just laying there - his head was here.

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And I tried to talk to him, but nothing was coming back.

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And the next thing I remember was going to the air ambulance,

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and after that, I don't remember a thing.

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One of the moments that I came round,

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the first thing I asked is how my dad was.

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And that's when they told me.

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Keith's father Ronald didn't make it out alive.

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It's the little bits and pieces that I really miss, you know,

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and they're never going to come back,

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and I have to realise that.

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I've got very good memories of Dad, and they're the ones I keep.

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I miss my dad a lot.

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Anton Maizen had used multiple tachograph charts,

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so that the authorities wouldn't know

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how many hours he'd been driving.

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We found one tachograph chart screwed up in his sock.

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We found another hidden in the seat of his cab,

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and one actually in the tachograph head.

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I can only guess that he wanted to cover his tracks,

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self-preservation, and hide those fake records.

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Keith spent 18 days in hospital with a fractured pelvis,

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broken ribs and a punctured lung.

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One year on, his health is still suffering.

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I'm undergoing counselling for post-traumatic stress disorder,

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because I'm finding that actually dealing with the accident itself

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and the aftermath of it was very, very difficult.

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My wife does her best to cheer me up, but sometimes,

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the feelings are overwhelming

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and nothing can be done, and I just have to get through it.

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Words can't describe what I feel for my wife.

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Anton Maizen was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

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For these drivers that are breaking the law

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by going over on their tachos, fiddling their tachos,

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I'd like to get hold of them and shake them,

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just to make sure they understand

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where I'm coming from,

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as I've been on the receiving end of it.

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Making fake records leads to tiredness,

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fatigue and this type of crash.

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Later, we see the outrageous

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number of hours behind the wheel

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some tachograph fakers are clocking up.

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The areas marked in red

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are those areas where the driver had actually driven,

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but had used the tachograph interrupter device

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to create a fraudulent record.

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And we show that not only do their interrupter devices

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fake the tachograph records,

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they can also transform the lorry into a death trap.

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We should be the slowest vehicle on this road.

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At this minute in time, we're the fastest vehicle on the road.

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Suntan lotion, a good book,

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shades,

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all very important for a great summer holiday,

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but not as important as this -

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your ticket to sun, sea and sand.

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Unless, that is, it turns out to be like this one - a fake.

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As one family of 11 found out,

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that means your holiday never gets off the ground.

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From Barcelona to the Bahamas,

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when it comes to Brits holidaying abroad, we are spoilt for choice.

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On almost every High Street in every town in the country,

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there'll be someone, somewhere, set up to sell you a holiday.

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But not all travel agents are there to send you to paradise.

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Some are fakers - they just want to pocket your hard-earned cash.

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When Maureen Keay, from Hull, downsized her house,

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she decided to spend the extra money on a holiday, but she didn't fancy

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just going by herself, she wanted the whole family to come with her -

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all 11 of them.

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There was myself, my daughter,

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her partner, my granddaughter,

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my grandson and their two partners,

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my great-grandchildren,

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and my other grandson.

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How generous, and a lovely treat for the family.

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With a little help from her eldest daughter Debbie,

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Maureen took to the web,

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and it wasn't long before she found something worth writing home about -

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a five-star resort in Antalya, in Turkey.

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And before you ask, no, it's not a fake.

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It made me feel really, really good I was really looking forward to it.

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To think we was all going to go together.

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Cos we've never been together before and I thought it'd be really exciting,

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we'd be able to let our hair down and everything like that.

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Really looking forward to it.

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Now, we've looked at the dangers of booking through fake online travel agents before,

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but this wasn't going to be a problem for Maureen

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as she knew who she wanted to book through -

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a High Street travel agent called Ellen Harrison,

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who was based in Hull.

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Maureen had booked through her before and was impressed.

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Yeah, why not? She's got you

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loads of deals previously, and really good deals, as well,

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for your holidays, and you've always enjoyed them.

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Always been nice hotels.

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Good flights as well, which was quite important, the flight times, with having the children.

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She said, "Oh, yeah, I'll book it."

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And she came back with a price straightaway.

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Within two hours, she came back with a price for us all.

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And I said, "Grab it with both hands."

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Maureen paid £6,800 all-in,

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and to top it all,

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Ellen Harrison agreed to book the flights, the hotel,

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and the transfers, so they could enjoy a fuss-free family holiday.

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We was just over the moon. Really, really over the moon.

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I was so excited to think I was going to surprise the kids with this

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fantastic holiday we were all going to have.

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The family printed the vouchers for their hotel, transfers,

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and their all-important E-tickets.

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They were now set to jet.

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But when they arrived at the airport check-in desk the following morning,

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events took an unexpected turn. They were told that

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the flight booking number on the E-tickets didn't exist.

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It looked like they'd just fallen for a fake.

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They took one look at the paperwork and said,

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"That's not one of our flights."

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And with that, it was the most sinking,

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heart-wrenching feeling you can imagine.

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I went into a shock mode, I just couldn't speak.

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I just stood there thinking, "It's not happening.

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"It's not happening to me. It's not happening to my family."

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Think of the worst moment in your life and that is what it was like.

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Once the dust had settled,

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Debbie took the paperwork relating to the holiday booking,

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which she now suspected was fake,

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to Detective Constable Steve Bromby at Humberside Police.

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On the surface, it all appeared to be legitimate.

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It looks like a genuine booking.

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It's got a booking reference number,

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it's got the destination of where they're travelling to and from.

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So, for example, this is from Manchester Airport.

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It gives the departure and return dates.

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It gives the lead name and all the people who are travelling.

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Looking at that, looks a genuine documentation.

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But as Steve Bromby dug a little deeper

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and contacted Flightline, the company Ellen Harrison

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was claiming she'd booked the flights through,

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it became clear the tickets weren't what they seemed.

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When they had a look at that from their information they were

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saying that the booking reference number should be unique and it isn't.

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The reference number relates, again, to another holiday.

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And on their system they never use capitals,

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but on this form, capitals are used.

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The font, in relation to the outward and inward, is incorrect,

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and there's information here relating to pricing

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which is completely missing off this

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but, on the genuine booking, would be in there.

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The tour operator, when they came back to me,

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clearly said that this documentation was fake.

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To them, it's clear that fraud has taken place.

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So, the flight details Ellen Harrison had given the family

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were as fake as a spray tan.

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And it was about to get a whole lot worse, as Steve discovered

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the hotel voucher and transfer vouchers were also fakes.

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Manchester Airport - all sat on their cases

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with their hands on their faces,

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Thinking, I can't let these bairns not go on holiday.

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They've booked time off work and they'd saved their money up.

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and I just said to Debbie, "I'm going to book another holiday."

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So Maureen booked another trip to Turkey

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and they flew out that day,

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but the new holiday cost Maureen a further £8,000.

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Coupled with the cost of the fake holiday,

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she was just shy of £15,000 out of pocket.

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Personally, I didn't enjoy the holiday.

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My children did, but I did not.

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Cos it played on my mind the 12 days we was away.

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I just thought, "How could she do that to me?"

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I've done no wrong to her.

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I just couldn't comprehend how somebody could do that

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to somebody who they know.

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But the actual detail on it...

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By looking at it, you would never realise how fake it was.

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As for Ellen Harrison, DC Steve Bromby had all the evidence

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he needed to prove she'd faked the tickets.

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She was given 120 hours' community service

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and ordered to pay Maureen compensation.

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It's not the fact that it's the money,

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it's the fact that she ruined the holiday.

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A holiday that we all was really looking forward to.

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And that is the hurting part about it.

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Earlier, we saw Essex Police catch a driver

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who'd been faking his tachograph records.

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This is the magnet that he's used

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to make his records fake.

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But it's not just happening in Essex.

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The Police Service of Northern Ireland's Superintendent David Moore

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is also waging war against the fakers, a battle he intends to win.

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In Northern Ireland, we have detected 50 vehicles being driven

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unlawfully in this manner in the last five years.

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We have active investigations running against seven haulage companies.

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And this is much more than about road safety,

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it's also about the fitness of these companies to operate,

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the fitness of the directors to run companies,

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it's about a level playing field in the commercial sector.

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But I want to bring it back to road safety.

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These people don't belong on our roads.

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Steven Spratt, Operations Manager at the Driver Enforcement Agency,

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Northern Ireland's equivalent of VOSA, can spot a faker a mile off.

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And after being the driving force behind recent prosecutions

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against drivers faking their records,

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he now knows all the tricks that they can use.

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Here's an example of an array of interrupter devices.

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In some instances, we have hard wiring -

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a simple relay device that operated through a toggle switch,

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it may have been a fog light switch, reversing light switch, whatever.

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And the effect of that was simply to switch off the signal

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going to the tachograph itself.

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These simple switches blend into the dashboard, and can create

0:19:280:19:33

fake charts by cutting the signal to the lorry's tachograph recorder.

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But some fake-makers are even more sophisticated.

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This one uses RF technology, where it's a radio signal.

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Typically, that would send a signal to your garage door.

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It sends a signal to this receiver device.

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The device itself will be hidden

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somewhere inside the vehicle's construction

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and will operate as a simple remote switch itself,

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but very, very effective.

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And very, very clever.

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Stick it in your pocket and it looks just like the key to the yard,

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so if the driver's stopped, they're less likely to get rumbled.

0:20:070:20:12

But the DVA's been fighting back,

0:20:120:20:13

and has already prosecuted two firms for sing these devices -

0:20:130:20:17

Dewart Transport Limited and Arnold Transport,

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where both the drivers and the firms' owners

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received suspended prison sentences.

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In these cases, once they'd discovered

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the tachograph faking equipment in the lorries,

0:20:290:20:31

Steven and his team had to prove that

0:20:310:20:33

they'd actually been used by drivers out on the road.

0:20:330:20:37

What we were able to do, in this particular case,

0:20:370:20:39

was to acquire GPS tracker records, to determine a minute-by-minute

0:20:390:20:43

movement of the actual vehicle itself.

0:20:430:20:46

In this case, a separate GPS tracker had been installed

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in the lorry by the haulage company.

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It's the same technology found in your average sat nav,

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and gave the team a true record

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of where and when the lorry had been driven.

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When the team compared it to the suspected fake tachograph charts,

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they got a bit of a shock.

0:21:040:21:07

In this particular case, there was 50% more driving done

0:21:070:21:11

than what was actually shown on the tachograph record.

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The areas marked on the chart in red

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are those areas where the driver had actually driven,

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but had used the tachograph interrupter device

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to create a fraudulent record.

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And the inspectors would have seen this chart, as opposed to this chart.

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Not only is this highly illegal, but also very unsafe,

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as the drivers were using the fake charts to cover up the fact

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they were working over twice the legal limit for driver hours.

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During another similar investigation,

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the driver had been on duty for some 111 hours, 44 minutes,

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over a five-day period,

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where he had only taken a maximum rest period of five hours.

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If my maths is correct,

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that means he was driving an average of just over 22 hours a day.

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Studies have shown that almost 20% of accidents

0:22:030:22:06

on Britain's roads are related to tiredness,

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and 40% of those involve commercial vehicles.

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No question about the extent of fatigue and sleep deprivation.

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And it's more shocking when you find out it's a fairly familiar story.

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We met a lorry driver who was convicted of faking

0:22:220:22:24

his tachograph chart.

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For his protection,

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we've obscured his identity.

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At his haulage firm,

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it was company policy to use

0:22:300:22:32

an electronic tachograph interrupter device.

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The boss come over and just says to you on the quiet,

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"If you run out of time, this is what you do

0:22:380:22:42

"so that you can get your load finished."

0:22:420:22:45

He says, "It's no big deal, everybody's doing it."

0:22:450:22:47

Our anonymous driver claims he started using it

0:22:470:22:51

due to pressure from his boss

0:22:510:22:53

to get the deliveries done.

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But slowly and surely, he was sucked into

0:22:540:22:56

the fraudulent world of the faker.

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You're stressing and you're worrying about it,

0:22:590:23:02

and if you dwell on it, you get to the stage

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where you're near physically sick.

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End of the day, you have to learn to live with what you're doing.

0:23:070:23:12

It gets to be a way of life.

0:23:120:23:13

You just accept it and get on with it.

0:23:130:23:15

Faking it became the norm,

0:23:150:23:18

and drivers learned how to exist on barely any sleep.

0:23:180:23:21

You could pick lottery numbers, so you could,

0:23:210:23:24

as to just how many hours...

0:23:240:23:26

You're legally allowed to do nine or ten hours driving a day, depending.

0:23:260:23:30

There's drivers could do 20-plus.

0:23:300:23:33

I've heard of drivers going out on a Sunday

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and not getting to bed till midweek - Tuesday or Wednesday.

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You just grab 20/30 minutes, a wee power nap sort of thing.

0:23:410:23:45

You're driving, windows down, cups of coffee - usual story.

0:23:450:23:50

But it's not a story, it's the reality.

0:23:510:23:55

And it's not only the drivers

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putting the lives of innocent motorists at risk,

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it's the lorries themselves.

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Once fitted, the tachograph faking device

0:24:040:24:06

can turn the lorry into a lethal machine,

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as built-in safety systems are disabled,

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along with the lorry's speed limiter.

0:24:100:24:13

PC Mike Rennie's taking out a lorry from a previous investigation

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that's rigged with a tachograph interrupting device,

0:24:180:24:21

to see just how dangerous it can be.

0:24:210:24:24

145, we're about to head off. Could you reset your trip?

0:24:240:24:26

This is a risky operation.

0:24:260:24:28

Three police vehicles are travelling in convoy with the lorry,

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to make sure they're safe at all times.

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It's just giving us a safer environment to work in.

0:24:370:24:40

It's to act as a safety barrier for any other road users.

0:24:400:24:45

Mike activates the tachograph faker which is hidden in the lorry,

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and immediately, the speedometer is disabled.

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The test is now on.

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You can actually physically feel yourself

0:24:530:24:56

being thrown into the back of the seat.

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Almost instantly,

0:24:570:24:59

there's an issue with one of the lorry's most vital safety systems.

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If you look at the dashboard in front of me,

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the top right-hand corner, there's a brake warning light came on.

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That is showing that there is a possible problem with the ABS.

0:25:090:25:14

ABS is the lorry's anti-lock braking system.

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Failure can cause the wheels to lock when the brakes are applied,

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causing the lorry to skid. Not good.

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With the device fitted,

0:25:250:25:27

all the lorry's safety systems are in meltdown.

0:25:270:25:30

But that's not the only danger here.

0:25:300:25:32

More worryingly, the lorry's speed limiter has also been disabled,

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meaning it can now travel at speeds well above

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the legal restriction of 56 miles per hour.

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The traffic car behind us has now told us

0:25:450:25:47

we're travelling at 80 miles per hour.

0:25:470:25:49

85.

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You don't get the concept of the speed we're travelling at.

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The ramifications if anything happened in front of us

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would be severe, trying to stop such a heavy vehicle at this speed,

0:25:590:26:02

hence the reason we have the closure in place.

0:26:020:26:06

It's lucky, as the lorry's stopping distance

0:26:060:26:09

is now double what it should be.

0:26:090:26:11

We're overtaking everything on this road, which should not be the case.

0:26:110:26:15

We should be the slowest vehicle on this road.

0:26:150:26:17

At this minute in time, we're the fastest vehicle on the road.

0:26:170:26:21

Look how quick we are catching up with that car.

0:26:210:26:24

That should not be happening.

0:26:240:26:26

The dangers of travelling at this speed

0:26:260:26:28

don't even bear thinking about,

0:26:280:26:30

and as the surrounding police cars pave a safe route for the lorry,

0:26:300:26:34

Mike is in for quite a shock.

0:26:340:26:35

95 miles an hour - I'm going to ease back.

0:26:350:26:38

We've just peaked at 100 miles an hour...

0:26:440:26:46

..and truth be told, that came as quite a surprise,

0:26:490:26:53

because there was no concept of

0:26:530:26:55

having travelled at that sort of a speed.

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This vehicle is being test driven in a controlled environment,

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by an advanced police driver.

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But clearly, the speed has taken its toll.

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The lorry's hit a problem.

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-We've an engine malfunction there, Mark.

-Yeah.

-It's all right?

0:27:080:27:12

What's the temperatures like?

0:27:120:27:15

The battery light's came on.

0:27:160:27:18

Temperature's down.

0:27:200:27:22

Excess speed, tired drivers, and major mechanical faults,

0:27:220:27:26

it's no wonder that Superintendant Moore is working hard

0:27:260:27:30

to drive these fakers off the road.

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I don't want to get over-dramatic here,

0:27:320:27:34

but imagine a comparison made with the commercial aircraft industry.

0:27:340:27:38

A 40-ton vehicle being controlled by someone who is exhausted,

0:27:380:27:43

where all the safety systems, designed though experience

0:27:430:27:47

and learning over many years, have simply been disabled.

0:27:470:27:50

And in a way, it's even more dangerous,

0:27:500:27:53

because these things aren't operating high in the sky,

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they're operating feet away from primary schools,

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inches away from other road users in much smaller vehicles.

0:27:590:28:02

The dangers are astronomical, and in some ways,

0:28:020:28:06

these are ticking time bombs on our roads.

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That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye.

0:28:140:28:17

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