A Glusburn parish councillor has had a careless driving conviction against him quashed.

Ian Fulton, of Farnhill, was found guilty by Skipton Magistrates in May of careless driving at the BP garage, in Station Road, Cross Hills, on October 31, last year.

Mr Fulton, who had denied the offence, had been accused of squeezing past a lorry at the filling station in his Sherpa van and scratching its paint work and smashing a wing mirror.

The driver of the damaged lorry said a trailer being pulled by the Sherpa and piled with pallets had caused the damage, but Mr Fulton claimed there was no trailer and the van was incapable of pulling a trailer. Magistrates at the time found him guilty of careless driving but not guilty of failing to stop at the scene of an accident and not guilty of failing to report an accident. He was fined £100 with four penalty points.

But at Bradford Crown Court last Wednesday, his appeal against the conviction was allowed.

Mr Fulton, a member of Glusburn and Cross Hills Parish Council, said that common sense had prevailed.

“I am very pleased,” he said. “There was no trailer, so how could there have been an accident with a non-existent trailer?”