The director of Doctors on Wheels, which signed off thousands of medical certificates for HGV drivers using unqualified staff, has been sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of fraud.
Andrew Eburne, director of Leicester-based Doctors on Wheels, was prosecuted in April following a long-running investigation after concerns were raised by the DVLA.
This week he was sentenced at Swansea Crown Court.
Doctors on Wheels claimed to use fully licensed doctors but was found to have unqualified staff signing people off as fit to drive lorries, buses and taxis – with consultations lasting minutes in the back of vans across the UK.
Doctors on Wheels was used by HGV licence holders and by candidates applying for HGV licences to complete the D4 medical certificate as part of the application process.
The D4 determines that the applicant is medically safe to operate heavy goods vehicles and the medical exams were carried out in mobile units across the UK.
However, after concerns were raised by a rival company and subsequently by DVLA, Swansea Trading Standards (TS) launched an investigation in 2019, using undercover officers posing as HGV licence applicants.
The investigation uncovered a major scam with D4s being signed off by unqualified individuals who were working for the company.
Prosecutors told the court that the value of the fraud was £681,699.
The investigators said in one case the company failed to notice one patient was “profoundly deaf” while another was “recorded as having perfect vision” despite having a glass eye.
“People who were known to the DVLA as having health conditions were being signed off as perfectly fit,” said Rhys Harries, who led the investigation for Swansea Trading Standards, who were the prosecutors in this case.
“We will never know the true extent of the public safety aspect and issues caused,” Lee Reynolds, prosecuting, told the court.
Laura Phillips, defending, told the court that between 2007 to 2017 the business had been operating legitimately “before it became dishonest”.
“Mr Eburne fully accepts he has brought this on himself,” she told Swansea Crown Court.
She also said the effect on Eburne and his family “has been catastrophic”.
Sentencing, Judge Huw Rees said the 51-year-old had “put profit before safety” as he played “a leading role” in “business dealings served to compromise public safety”.
The judge added that the examinations should have been performed by qualified doctors and Eburne flouted the rules in a “brazen” manner.
“You were the founder and orchestrator of this dishonest system,” he said. “You abused your position of responsibility”.
Five other defendants who worked for Doctors on Wheels were found not guilty.
A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing will be held in December.
