TWO Dorset haulage firms have had their licences revoked by government traffic chiefs in the aftermath of a fatal crash.

Sister companies, Translact Limited and Taymix Limited, who share commercial premises in Pimperne, near Blandford, will lose their operator’s licences from April 19 and June 7 respectively.

The ruling follows a public enquiry after Neville and Cheryl De’Ath were killed on a section of the A303 in Wiltshire in March 2007, after their car was hit by a 44-tonne Translact tanker.

Now, Traffic Commissioner, Sarah Bell, has published a scathing report into the conduct of the firms’ directors.

Disqualifying Translact director, Robert Taylor, from holding an operator’s licence for eight years, Miss Bell said the period was “appropriate and proportionate” for him to consider “just how far below the required standard of required behaviour he has fallen.”

“Robert Taylor has, over a sustained period, shown a complete disregard for the law. His conduct prior to the fatality was an affront to the Operator Licensing regime,” she wrote.

Mr Taylor had “actively condoned and connived” with drivers to falsify their tachograph charts over a sustained period of time, she concluded in her report.

Translact Limited escaped disqualification after assurances that the business is to be closed, the report said.

His father, Rory Taylor, a director of Taymix Limited, will see the firm’s operator’s licence revoked on June 7 following a “loss of repute”

in connection with the fatality.

A “very high hurdle” would have to be cleared by Rory Taylor to persuade her that his repute, or that of Taymix, had been restored to a level required to regain a licence, she said.

Translact driver, Maciej Szcygiecki, was jailed for four years on a charge of dangerous driving after admitting driving for 16 hours without a break.

Manslaughter charges against Rory and Robert Taylor collapsed in May 2009. The pair were fined several thousand pounds last September for breaking health and safety regulations.