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issue 217
issue 217
Auriga Systems Data Despatch
01582 466800
www.auriga.co.uk
www.phtm.co.uk october 2010 The official newspaper of the National Private Hire Association
NPHA ADVOCATES CAMPAIGN TO LOBBY GOVERNMENT ABOUT BOGUS DRIVERS
The National Associa- tion, having taken into account all the recent news reports about bogus drivers and rape cases, has decided to poll the legitimate licence holders that make up this industry on the subject of bogus drivers around the country, and pres- ent the results of that survey to the Home Office, the Department for Transport, and any other department that will listen. We did not have enough room in this issue to bring readers all the details under headlines such as, “Rogue cabbie without licence caught carrying passengers”, or “Illegal cabbies facing court rap over pickups”, or “Fined: taxi firm had unlicensed vehicle”. The national and local press is full of it, and it makes for depressing reading for all.
PHTM readers will note in this issue the news item about an illegal driver in London having been jailed for
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eight years for raping a woman in the back of his car. The only reason this individual was caught ultimately is that, seven years after the rape attack, he was arrested last year for touting in an illegal taxi and for assault, and his DNA was linked to the 2003 attack.
Readers will also see the item inside about the Home Office hav- ing now decided to shelve funding to scru- tinise rape inves- tigations, as part of the cost-cutting review of Government spending both nationally and locally. The study, which was to be financed with £441,000 from the Home Office, was to conduct in-depth investigations as to how rape cases are processed, how vic- tims are treated, and
how and where the perpetrators of these crimes come from and are dealt with. Evident- ly the Home Office has decreed that the fund- ing for such probes would duplicate other reviews into similar crimes, so they intend not to proceed with it. So we now have a sit- uation where not only are bogus drivers pos- ing illegally as hackney carriage or private hire drivers and taking trade away from legitimate licence holders; they will now – as happened with John Worboys – be left to carry on their sexual attacks and rapes because police forces will not believe their victims, and conceiv- ably those victims’ testimony will not always be investigated in depth.
Certainly the country has to tighten its belt
NEW FEATURES 7 EXTRA COST 0
w eatures E7 Model Refresh - Now with 7 ne tu
in light of several years of overspending in every direction. The Government’s Budget Review on October 22nd will reflect the many ways in which they are contemplat- ing that belt-tightening exercise. Already a leaked Government document revealed that some 200 quan- gos are to be disbanded or re- grouped into other organisations in aid of cost cutting. However, the idea that procedural investiga- tions into rape cases and related crimes will not now go forward seems to be a retro- grade step in the extreme. The NPHA would ask all PHTM readers on this partic- ular occasion to pick up a pen, or get sat down at the keyboard, and get in touch with us. More on page four.
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