COSTLY APPEALS
SWANSEA CABBIE WHO LOST LICENCE APPEAL ORDERED TO PAY £4,000 COSTS
An applicant refused a taxi licence by Swansea Council (SC)has been ordered to pay £4,000 in costs after his appeal against the decision was thrown out by a judge. Mohammed Rashid, 47, went to court to try to appeal the decision by SC’s licensing committee that he was not a fit and proper person to have a licence. But a judge at Newport Magistrates’ Court agreed with SC. The court sitting on July 19 heard that Rashid’s taxi licence had been revoked by SC in 2015 following a
number of concerns about his suitability to be a taxi driver. The following year he applied for a licence
to another licensing
authority and was turned down. In his latest application to SC for a licence last November, he did not disclose the prior refusal or a speeding offence, both of which he was required to do. Council officers discovered the information and presented it and other evidence about his suitability to the licensing committee which then turned down his application.
Ordering him to pay council costs of £4,000, the judge said that as a taxi driver, responsibility and trust is paramount and that all drivers as part of their role will come into contact
with the vulnerable.
Therefore, higher standards were required. Councillor David Hopkins said: “Customers need to feel safe and secure when they get into a taxi or PHV. They can play their part too by checking before they get into a taxi that both the vehicle and the driver is licensed.”
VALE OF WHITE HORSE LICENCE DECISION UPHELD BY COURT; DRIVER TO PAY £1,000 COSTS
An Oxford taxi driver was refused a new licence by Vale of White Horse DC (VWHDC) after it emerged he failed to disclose key information in his application. Hekuran Gjeta, 45, who had successfully obtained licences in 2013, 2016 and 2019, claimed not to have realised he needed to tell the council when he renewed his licence in 2022 about a 2009 police caution for threatening behaviour or that in 2011 Oxford City Council (OCC) refused him a HC licence. But at an appeal hearing at Oxford Crown Court, his explanations were rejected and he was told that licensing officers were right to refuse his application last summer. Delivering the judgment, the Recorder went through the council’s four reasons for refusal set out in a letter to Gjeta in August 2022. Firstly, regarding the 2009 police
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caution, he said: “We find the appellant had no proper excuse for that non-disclosure and knew it was relevant to
his licence
application because that very caution had been put to him in 2011 when he applied unsuccessfully to OCC for a HC driver’s licence. So we find that it was deliberate.” The judge added: “Secondly, the applicant was refused a licence by OCC in 2011 which was not declared to the VWHDC when he applied to them. The applicant sought to excuse this failure by saying he thought he’d only been refused by Oxford because he’d failed the knowledge test and therefore thought he didn’t needed to disclose this to the VWHDC. But that cannot be right as the caution was put to him at his meeting with OCC in 2011 and he therefore knew that was why he was refused the OCC licence, not
the failed knowledge test.” Turning to the failure to declare a conviction for speeding he had received in February 2021, Recorder McGregor told the court: “It’s clear from previous application forms that the appellant knew that speeding offences were disclos- able and that he has had more than one of those in the past.” Gjeta gave ‘no satisfactory – or, indeed, any answer’ for failing to disclose a police ‘community disposal’ received in May 2022. “Even if there were no other matters to consider we consider that the appellant would not be a fit and proper person to hold a hackney [licence],” the judge said. “He has exhibited dishonesty in his dealings with the council in regard to the licence application process.” The bench ordered Gjeta pay £1,000 in costs to the council after his appeal was thrown out.
SEPTEMBER 2023 PHTM
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