FIT AND PROPER CO DURHAM MAN TO PAY OVER £800 FOR OPERATING A PHV WITHOUT OPERATOR’S LICENCE
Durham County Council took legal action against Kyle Stones, of High Pittington, after receiving information that a taxi company was advertising on Facebook, possibly without the required licence. When officers checked its taxi database with the telephone number advertised, it matched the number given in Stones’ driver application to become a licensed driver with the council However, the 21-year-old had not completed the process and with-
drew his application last November. Enforcement officers telephoned the advertised number, in March of this year, and they were able to make a booking for a vehicle to collect them from Durham and take them to Newcastle Airport. When the vehicle arrived, it displayed a Newcastle private hire plate number. Subsequent enquiries with Newcastle City Council confirmed that Stones was a licensed private hire driver with a licensed vehicle, but that he did not hold a private hire operators'
licence. The law requires that all PHVs can only be booked via a PH operator and the PH operator, PH driver and PHV must all be licensed with the same operator. Stones, refused to attend an interview with the council and did not attend Peterlee Magistrates Court but pleaded guilty by post to operating a vehicle without a private hire operators' licence. He was fined £200 and ordered to pay £650 costs and £34 victim surcharge, totalling £884.
BRIGHTON & HOVE CITY COUNCIL REPORT STATES A NUMBER OF TAXI LICENCES REVOKED
A taxi driver has been arrested for causing death by dangerous driving, according to a Brighton and Hove City Council report. The unnamed cabbie’s licence was revoked in July, according to the report to the council’s Licensing Committee. In September another cabbie’s licence was revoked, the report said, while Sussex Police were “investigating a number of serious criminal offences” and had obtained security camera footage. The report said that a “lone female passenger was sick” in a taxi. The driver stopped and was alleged to have used force to take the woman’s bag once she was out of the vehicle. The report added: “He then started to drive off while she was trying to retrieve her bag back through the open driver’s window. She was dragged along by the vehicle.”
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A third cabbie had his licence revoked in June and was also under investigation by the police “for assault causing ABH after being involved in an altercation with another driver”. And a fourth cabbie had his private hire licence revoked after receiving a six-month driving ban although the report did not name him or what offence led to the ban. Two former cabbies applied for a new licence but both were refused. Neither was named. One had been jailed for three years in 2019 for conspiring to assist unlawful immigration. The other was tried for sexual assault and false imprisonment of a female passenger but acquitted by a jury. The Licensing Committee report said: “His licence was revoked on 15 February 2016 when information was received from Sussex Police that that he had been interviewed
by them and admitted that he had engaged in sexual acts while working as a licensed driver in lieu of payment of a fare.” The report also said that police and council licensing officers from Brighton & Hove as well as from Lewes DC held several joint licensing enforcement operations from June to September. On one date in June, they checked 23 vehicles in Brighton, nine of which were licensed by Chichester and Lewes councils. Enforcement action was taken in relation to two vehicles licensed by Brighton & Hove and four licensed by Lewes. A Chichester driver was fined and given three penalty points for having a bald tyre. Another was stopped after making an illegal right turn in July. He had two passengers in the back but no drivers’ badge, no licence and no insurance. His vehicle was seized.
NOVEMBER 2022 PHTM
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